Aborigines (The Minority)

[Busman747]

All those that have followed my threads probably realise that I object strongly to the "pc brigade" dictating what we say or even think regards racism - but Australia seem to have gone in totally the opposite direction, lashing out at Aborigines in the Northern Territories..........

Here is a News report from June 2007 that I have just come across:

Prime Minister John Howard has announced a six-month ban on alcohol in indigenous communities across the Northern Territory.
The move is one of a series of measures in response to a major Northern Territory report last week which revealed widespread child abuse in indigenous communities, fuelled in part by alcohol.
"We regard this as akin to a national emergency," Mr Howard said in Canberra.
Detailing measures to be taken, he said: "In relation to alcohol the intention is to introduce widespread alcohol restrictions on Northern Territory Aboriginal land for six months.
"We will ban the sale, the possession, the transportation, the consumption and [introduce the] broader monitoring of takeaway sales across the Northern Territory."
The Federal Government would legislate to intervene in the territory to enact measures to combat child abuse, Mr Howard said.
He said 50 per cent of welfare payments through Centrelink to parents of children in affected areas would be quarantined to prevent all their money being spent on alcohol.
"The obligation in relation to that will follow the parent wherever that parent may go so the obligation cannot be avoided simply by moving to another part of Australia.
"Effectively, the arrangements will be that that 50 per cent can only be used for the purchase of food and other essentials."
Mr Howard also announced the Commonwealth would make welfare payments dependent on children attending school.
"We're going to enforce school attendance by linking income support and family assistance payments to school attendance for all people living on Aboriginal land," he said.
"We will be ensuring that meals are provided to children at school, with parents paying for the meals."
The Federal Government would take control of Aboriginal townships through five-year leases to improve property and public housing, Mr Howard said, adding that compensation would be forthcoming if required.
Mr Howard said the reforms would include scrapping the permit system for common areas and road corridors on Aboriginal lands, and marshalling work-for-the-dole participants to clean up Aboriginal communities.
Possession of X-rated pornography would be banned and all publicly-funded computers searched for evidence of stored pornography, he said.

Mr Howard said law and order would be a central focus of the dramatic measures.

"There will be an immediate increase in policing efforts," he said.

"We'll be asking each state police service to provide up to 10 officers who will be sworn as police in the Northern Territory."

The Government will also set up an Australian Government sexual abuse reporting desk.

Mr Howard said there will be a meeting next Thursday of the intergovernmental committee on the Australian Crime Commission.

"At the meeting our minister will ask the ministerial council to formally refer this issue to the Australian Crime Commission to allow the crime commission to locate and identify perpetrators of sexual abuse of indigenous children in other areas of Australia."

Mr Howard said at cabinet's next meeting Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough would present further proposals to extend the conditionalities of welfare payments to other welfare recipients.

"To ensure that these payments are used for the benefit of the children," he said.

He said Parliament would come back during the winter break, if needed, to deal with the legislation required to implement the initiative.

Mr Brough said cabinet would consider conditions on which measures requiring welfare payments to be devoted to the benefit of indigenous children would be extended to all other welfare recipients.

He said that particularly applied to the family tax benefit, but included all payments intended to assist children.

"The Australian population has a real desire to see that money only spent on the welfare of children. That has been our clear objective," he said.

"In addition to that is of course school education. You shouldn't have a black or white boundary. Every child should be going to school and if this can help do that, then they are two areas we are current examining and we will have further to say after the cabinet."
Seizure of land 'will take indigenous people back 40 years'

Sydney Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council chair Rob Welsh said he had not yet seen the details of the proposed measures, but that the seizure of Aboriginal land would take indigenous people back 40 years.

"It's total control of Aboriginal destinies. They've been trying to do it with housing right across Australia.

"That land has cultural significance because there are things that connect people to the land over centuries."

He said Aboriginal people had little trust in governments to deal sensitively with land.

"As soon as we start giving it back it's going to be mined and have waste dumped on it."

Northern Territory grog ban - National - smh.com.au


Are Australia heading in the right direction? – or are they WAY out of order!
Apparently, the indigenous people (Aboringinals) are reputed to abuse children in that they spend money on alcohol rather than their children so the government have come up with a scheme to prevent parents from drinking.

I have dropped the link in above so you can view where I got my report, but I was SHOCKED to find that in a country like Australia, the indigenous people are treated as less than second class citizens. What is happening on the other side of the world??

[Mancie]

Its a disgrace.. the Aborigines are the only "real" Australians... you can't tell me that some "white" Australians who also claim benifits spend it all on their kids!.. so why target the Abbo's

I've never been to Auss but I had a friend round the other day who has duel Aussie/Brit nationality and he said he was amazed at the amount of open racism that goes on in that country.. the last time he visited he took a friend along who is half morrocan/british and was amazed when a lady in a bar asked if he was a "coon"

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Mancie

Its a disgrace.. the Aborigines are the only "real" Australians...

The only real Aussies are the Kangaroos.

What you call the Aborigines came to Os from Indonesia only 50,000 years ago.

[Mancie]

Originally Posted by garinda

The only real Aussies are the Kangaroos.

What you call the Aborigines came to Os from Indonesia only 50,000 years ago.

That's silly.. the Kangaroos came from west Africa during the continental break up around 600 million years ago..so Kangaroos are Africans

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Mancie

That's silly..

Wrong!

Actually the kangaroos came down the gang plank of the Ark, two by two.

[expat]

It was inevitable that a land mass the size of Australia was going to be discovered, if it wasn't the English it could have been quite easily the Dutch (what fun that would have been) or the Indonesians next door,I'm not making any excuses for what went on in the past, and the way they where treated it was wrong, the world was a lot crueler place back then.
But here's a Question for you what would England be like if you blamed the Romans for invading, and they gave you free handouts each week,there would be a few sad cases around, I'am sure,

[Margaret Pilkington]

In Cairns they round up the aboriginals and take them to waiting planes to transport them back to their own lands where alcohol is not available.

[Margaret Pilkington]

One of the most frightening things that happened to me while I was in Oz was driving into a totally aboriginal village(by mistake) and finding that there was only one road out....and that was the road we went into the village on.
The houses had had their doors ripped off and there were mattresses and piles of lager cans in the gardens.
Apparently the houses had been built with the aboriginals in mind, but not taking into consideration that the aboriginals will not live in house when someone has died there...preferring to sleep on a mattress in the garden.
I think some Aussies pay a lot of lip service to aboriginal culture and art without taking it very seriously.

[Tin Monkey]

Originally Posted by Mancie

That's silly.. the Kangaroos came from west Africa during the continental break up around 600 million years ago..so Kangaroos are Africans

Surely kangaroos evolved in Australia, as they're not found anywhere else?

[Busman747]

Do we not have any accyweb members that currently reside in Australia and could perhaps let us limeys know what the situation is there?

[LancYorkYankee]

I'll try to get eggstoocool on it!

Brian

[steeljack]

sorry , and before the karma starts to fly this is not intended for anyone in particular , but , I've learned over the years that the British are the biggest 'tut-tutters' in the world. Complaining , moralizing and sticking their noses into other countries problems , often times before looking into their own mirror .
Last I heard Australia was an Independant country, with strong Republican tendancies, no longer ruled by the 'the Great White Queen over the Water' she may still appear on the postage stamps and banknotes but thats it.
How Australia treats it indigenous population is no one's business but Australia's, the 'Anglo Australians' have lived alongside the aborigines long enough to know what works . Most 'developed' countries which have native indigenous populations know that there is an inevitable clash of cultures and for good or bad the ones in charge write the rule book .
Here in the U.S. Native Americans have big problems with alcohol abuse , (its a genetic thing about how enzymes absorb differently into the bloodstream) , a few years back I was in Anchorage Alaska for the Iditorod dog-sled race and it was 'shocking' to see so many Aleuts and Eskimos passed out drunk in shop doorways after the bars had closed, (February is COLD in Alaska) fortunatly the local police have a system in place where they patrol the town with heated 'paddy wagons' to collect these folks an save their lives, they are released with no charges as soon as they sober up the next day, other Americans usually get a 'drunk in public' citation.
I think the folks who complain about the Australian Govts treatment of Aborigines should just take a step back and ask themselves what would they do , would you knowingly let a 'stone-age' culture/race drink itself out of existance out of some fear that you were violating their 'Human Rights' or do you think they should be kept on 'reservations' like animals in a zoo.

[shakermaker]

Originally Posted by steeljack

sorry , and before the karma starts to fly this is not intended for anyone in particular , but , I've learned over the years that the British are the biggest 'tut-tutters' in the world. Complaining , moralizing and sticking their noses into other countries problems , often times before looking into their own mirror .

Three words fella:

War.
on.
Terror.

[Tin Monkey]

Originally Posted by shakermaker

Three words fella:

War.
on.
Terror.

Exactly what I was thinking when I read that. Couldn't really believe it.

[eggstoocool]

WOW what a topic... well now lets see just where do I start??

Kangaroos, well they can i believe also be found in small numbers in Papua/New Guinea... and Im lead to believe that their is a community of Wallabies living on the Moors somewhere in Lancashire, must be the ashton-under-lyne region, that apparently escaped from some kind of wildlife zoo a few years ago and have thrived there.

It seems to me that the media always make these situations seem much worse than they really are, however i this instance yes there has been some talk of authorities going into aboriginal communities and taking action. I have quite a number of Aboriginal friends, i grew up right next door to a coastal aboriginal community, and have stayed in contact with the people i met in school. The Koori folks (aboriginals own name for themselves) that I know are the first to say that their people shouldnt be allowed alcohol, they become aggressive and destructive more than anyone else i have ever met after just a few drinks.

Let me go back a few years.... when i was at school, about 25% of the kids in my school were aboriginal, the rest were a mix of many other cultures, Australian, British, American, European, African, Indian, Asian.... and so on. I lived in a very multicultural neighbourhood... The Aboriginals however were the only ones that had everything at school provided free... uniforms, books, pencils, school lunches, even breakfast was provided for them, the costs to go on camps and other field trips was all covered for them. This has continued throughout the years as other peoples education costs have risen year by year. Another thing provided free is childcare, which costs the rest of us around $60 - $80 a day... (around 25 pounds a day). They also receive a higher rate of welfare from the government if unemployed than the rest of us, and thats just how most of them choose to stay... unemployed... the houses i read about in a post earlier in this topic, are also provided free for them.... and I can respect that they may not want to live in a dwelling where one of their family or friends may have passed away, but that doesn't mean they should be lighting fires in the middle of the living room and totally destroying those houses.... you will find whole communities of destroyed houses.. with the residents living in the streets... and id be willing to bet that they weren't all houses someone had died in!

What other people in Australia are asking... is where is the discrimination really... are they being discriminated against having everything handed to them.... or are the rest of us the ones being discriminated against by not being given the same things. Im not really sure about where the black and white schools comment earlier came from, because i have never known any segregation in schools here at all, I went to school with all colours and cultures and so did my children.. they all saw and did the same things and all had the same opportunities for education and career.... however i can say that the aboriginal folks often kept their children home from school, and guess what, even if they had missed half the year, they still passed.... but if the rest of us missed even half of the time they did, we would have failed..

I work with number aboriginal people, and while most of them are great, there are a few of them that ring in sick every other day... you can probably guess what im going to say next.... I work 40 hours a week over 5 days... fairly normal full time employment.... but how long do you think I, or any of you, would keep your jobs if we took off 5 out of every 10 days we were meant to work? Not long i can tell you.... but do these people lose their jobs? no way... because if they did, then the aboriginal affairs people would be screaming discrimination..... again i ask.. where does the discrimination in that really lie?

A lot of Australians (and I use the term Australians quite liberally, because Australians are from many many cultures and nations) are getting a little tired of not being treated equally, and getting a little tired of having to apologise for the way our forefathers may have treated aboriginals in the past..... (and i mean in the early days of settlement, and all the perpetrators and injured parties are now long gone) How many times do we have to say sorry and try to make it up to them by handing everything to them on platters... just to have it thrown back in our faces over and over... They have become like a culture of spoilt children who just put out their hands when they want something, and its given to them..... but like all parents know, what our children want isnt necessarily good for them.

Im not a racist in any way, my friends and neighbours number folks from all kinds of cultures and nations, and you can believe that the general aussie public are up in arms about the things we have been hearing in the media.... There have however been reports coming out of Aboriginal communities.... I believe some very isolated communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.... that the welfare benefits they receive are mainly being spent on alcohol and cigarettes, and not on providing for the needs of their children, and that some children have been subject to mental and physical abuse, and some even having sex for money to provide more funds for the family.... these reports were first brought to light by other aboriginal people living in the communities in question, and subsequently investigated and apparently proven to be true.... so yes perhaps the government does need to take a hand and keep back part of the welfare to make sure the children receive food and clothing and other basic needs, and maybe some of the badly abused children do need to be removed from their homes..... and lets face it, if you or i were found to be abusing our children in these ways, would not child protection authorities move in the same way? All I know is that if these reports are really true, then something has to be done about it... and just how does one handle it.... how does one suddenly stop spoiling a child they have given everything to their whole life, and hold them to the standards and laws the rest of us are held to, without creating uproar of some kind?

When it comes to Aboriginal land rights, Im of the opinion that places that are sacred to them culturally and religiously, should be definitely be preserved.... they are often beautiful peaceful places, full of the history of the aboriginal people.. no one has the right try to take those places away, or to do anything that may endanger or destroy them. Im with the Aboriginals all the way when it comes to their land rights.

I dont believe that australia is such an openly racist place at all.... we just have strange ways that other people dont always get.... name calling seems to be part of it.... its a mateship thing.... I wont even bother trying to explain it!!

Well enough from me i think.

Eggs xx