Comments on: Who speaks for Aboriginal people? You, Warren Mundine?

By: gary

gary — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Frank, you sound like an interesting person. My experience of remote aboriginal settlements has been overwhelmingly bad. Yours seems to be good, or at least tolerable.
I would be interested to communicate directly. I don’t know if this will get past the moderator or if you’ll read it but my address is gandlin@bigpond.com. Please talk to me.

By: Natz

Natz — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

It's typical that narrow minded white trash like Bilious, and uninformed journos like Ms Christensen take the high moral ground; it's a pity they never realise it's made of sand.

I believe the point that Kim Hill is trying to make is that the Indigenous people are represented by many different tribes, and to have one tribe make policy for so many others does not work. Sp Mr Mundine isn't racist, it's just he doesn't speak for all aboriginals when he makes his utterances. It is as nonsensical as believing Berlusconi speaks for all of Europe when he makes his silly comments. He doesn't. Even if when he is chairman of the European Community; other countries will not accept his rulings if they have not been consulted. It's the same with the aboriginal people. How do I know? I've talked to some as well as to sympathetic whites... probably a lot more than the bilious Bilous or Ms Christensen has ever done.

Can I also throw in here that a vast majority of remote communities DO NOT suffer from alcoholism, rampant rapists and pedophiles... but again, I'm taking my facts from people who work on them, visit them and see these things first hand. But I guess they're no match for election year politics and Alan Jones.

Research my friends; it can be most enlightening.

By: fehowarth

fehowarth — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Please can some one please tell me how many children have been found to be sexually or physically abused since this so called intervention began. It is my understanding that most of the children reported as being abused before this time had already been investigated and offenders taken before the court. Is not the reality be that this type of intervention would lead to abuse going underground and less likely to be found, putting more children at risk.

By: Bilious

Bilious — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

B. Ms Hill, how long do you think hard-pressed people in the south who pay taxes, worry about losing their jobs, and struggle to pay school fees for two children are going to feel generous towards people who insist on living where they can do nothing but be burdens on the taxpayer and show no signs of being able to cope with modern civilisation, despite you claims that you have adequate leaders in the NT?
Hill. But this was our land and your people stopped us living the way we used to so you owe it to us.
B. Forever? If you accept that you can’t and won’t go back to pre-contact life but want to enjoy the benefits of modern civilisation, not least increased healthy life expectancy, don’t you want to show you can pull your weight and contribute as well as anyone else by the time your young children are 25 or 30? If so, what’s your plan? Don’t you think Warren Mundine, Noel Pearson, Sue Gordon and Marcia Langton know more about what will help hunter-gatherer people with no marketable skills to become self-respecting employable citizens of Australia than the unnamed NT leaders you would rely on?

By: Nicole Watson

Nicole Watson — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Precisely whom Warren Mundine speaks for is a vexed question. One possible answer is everyone! When he was the National President of the ALP, Mundine was a member of the National Indigenous Council, which endorsed the policies of the Howard Government. Mundine also blamed communal land titles for Indigenous poverty, while being employed as the CEO of Native Title Services Corp - an organisation whose purpose is to advocate for the recognition of communal interests in land. Likewise, Mundine apparently saw no conflict between his role at Native Title Services Corp and his recent appointment to the board of the Australian Uranium Association. Now we hear that Warren is happy to be called a racist. Who really cares? A more pressing question is why does the Rudd Government listen to Warren Mundine at all?

By: steve martin

steve martin — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

There is more to child abuse than sexual exploitation. It is child abuse that children are not getting decent meals with fresh fruit and veges; are in substandard housing,with poor sanitation , and are lacking a decent education.etc etc

By: Frank Baarda

Frank Baarda — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Perhaps the commission's work was due to end for the same reason the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq were sent home some years ago?
As to "who speaks for Aboriginal people..."; are we to assume that the highly diverse Aboriginal Society has a small group of 'spokespersons'? What is the answer to the question: "Who speaks for non-Aboriginal Australian's?" Attempts at creating democratic structures in Aboriginal society that might have produced such "spokespersons" have been resisted and sabotaged. No such unified structure exists today.
Right from the start the NTER (Northern Territory Emergency Response) has been based on stereotypes of dysfunctional communities, widespread depravity and violence, "rivers of grog" and so on.
The latest (what I believe to be a co-ordinated attack) is the perpetuation of the myth of a deep chasm between Aboriginal men (the "perpetrators") and women and children (the "victims").
I'm a non-Indigenous resident of Yuendumu- a "prescribed area" under the NTER Legislation- and have happily lived here with my family for over three decades. Yuendumu is a great place to bring up your children.
Whilst I don't deny that Yuendumu has some problems and could be improved (name me a place that this doesn't apply to), I'm stunned by the continuing barrage of assertions and untruths being unleashed by Governments (NT & Federal) and their cheer squad, to justify the extremely wasteful and counter-productive Intervention.
Aborigines on remote communities are being denied control of their own lives and destiny.
This is the Ultimate Injustice.
Years from now a PM will be making a speech saying "sorry" to those remote Aborigines whose societies and languages will have been destroyed.
(Incidentally I don't claim to "speak for Aboriginal people"- just myself.
Also at meetings here, local Warlpiri when they speak tend to be ignored and not listened to)

By: Frank Baarda

Frank Baarda — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Bilious (is that what your parents called you?)- I hear it all the time: how tax payers money is wasted on those ungrateful ‘black-fellows’ that won’t get off their arse and get themselves real-jobs …. ad naseum.
Well, guess what, most of that money doesn’t reach us out here… Your tax payer’s money (and mine)paid for a $200,000 fence built by outside contractors around our rubbish dump (5Km away), an estimated $500,000 so far for salary and accomodation and travel for a GBM (Government Business Manager) that doesn’t appear to do much. Probably a similar amount for Centrelink personnel to implement that bizarre scheme known as “Income Management” and so on …. ad nauseum. You wouldn’t believe the number of public servants that come out here on big salaries in shiny new four-wheel drive vehicles.
And Steve Martin you might add: denying children to be taught in their own language, disempowering and disrespecting their parents.
And I can assure you that Yuendumu children have been getting decent meals with fresh fruit and veges for a long time. Mind you: Charity volunteers are expected here soon to distribute fruit to school children. How bloody patronising is that?! As if Warlpiri people don’t buy fruit for their children.
Incidentally “income management” is applied to ALL Centrelink recipients including dignified pensioner ladies that have never drunk alcohol in all their lives. Targeted “income management” applied to the odd “rotten apple” by all means, but accross the board? No wonder they had to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act.

By: Joan Croll

Joan Croll — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I have never forgotten the history of Aborigines in the first edition of The Australian Encyclopedia in the 1960’s - so the disconnnect between what I read then about their healthy family life, birth control, and other strict social matters and the facts as we are fed them by the media today - is vast.
Kim Hill is right in saying that Aboriginal women and their children are beautiful - but how can they cope with menfolk brought up in poor families with alcohol and drug abuse making their violence seem to be ‘natural’ ?