Federal Parliament resumes tomorrow, and the legislation to give effect to the announced policy changes in the NT for the Indigenous emergency (which all the papers seem to have given up covering) will be introduced. The much mooted special sitting didn’t eventuate, no doubt because as with all of this poll driven policy, it wasn’t thought out properly when announced.
Tim Dunlop has some interesting links at Blogocracy - to a post from Andrew Bartlett who’s recently returned from the Territory, and to comments from one of the authors of the original report which was the pretext for the intervention, who now claims that it was just that and nothing more.
It’ll be interesting to see what attitude the Labor leadership takes to the legislation suspending land rights and abolishing the permit system, which no one has yet been able to demonstrate responds to child sexual abuse.
Elsewhere: Bartlett - legislation to be rushed through Parliament.
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This appears to be the Labor Leaders attitude so far,
Bugger!
WTF are they going to spend the money on? How do you eliminate child sexual abuse with half a billion dollars?
I wonder how long before the real agenda emerges … force indigenous people to the cities where they can assimilate.
The whole thing stinks.
I think it’s actually to force them into being a low paid workforce for mining companies and in regional towns, but same diff.
7.30 Report had it that the legislation has yet to be accepted by ALP caucus.
Might be the time to send that email to a local Labor pollie on , at the least, the “legislation suspending land rights and abolishing the permit system”.
Saying that it stinks and a needs some change.
Though, if they did that, ‘the Brough’, would then say, that if they don’t support the whole package, they hate little aboriginal babies. It’s all so predictable and sad.
Sure is.
joe2 wrote:
But do you honestly think that line of attack will have any impact?
If Labor oppose the legislation it will barely change a single vote in my view.
The wedge politics of this issue won’t resonate with the voting public because there’s no fear element or hip-pocket politics about this to get people anxious.
I would off thought that the half-billion dollar cost blow out, announced today, would make people wary of proceeding with the legislation anyway.
Two hypotheses:
First, Rudd believes in this stuff. I wouldn’t put it past him - he’s a big Noel Pearson booster.
Second, it’s all part and parcel of the “don’t give them any opening” strategy.
Both are probably correct.
Since we’re all supposed to be so enamoured of the US, its courts, rule of law, etc., how come no-one’s cited US Justice William Brennan’s opinion in the landmark Goldberg v. Kelly (1970) case which estabished that welfare rights could not be abridged without a hearing.
Prior to Goldberg v. Kelly, welfare payments in the US were widely considered to be a privilege or a charitable payment, rather than an entitlement.
Justice Brennan stated, “From its founding the Nation’s basic commitment has been to foster the dignity and well-being of all persons within its borders…. Welfare, by meeting the basic demands of subsistence, can help bring within the reach of the poor the same opportunities that are available to others to participate meaningfully in the life of the community.… Public assistance, then, is not mere charity, but a means to ‘promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.’â€?
The Australian government’s attack on the provisions for social security payments to Aboriginal people is both racially discriminatory and anti-American.
I think Rudd realises the difficulty of defending the status quo if, as everyone seems to assume, there is a child abuse epidemic in the communities. You cannot support a system if it allowed this to happen, that is a simple political fact.
Pat Anderson may feel ‘betrayed’ but her deeply flawed report gave Howard the perfect opportunity to intervene. It is astounding how little criticism the Wild Report has received outside indigenous communities.
“But do you honestly think that line of attack will have any impact?”
Personally, the Brough faux sincerity makes me me want to reach for the chuck bucket. Still, Labor cannot change the legislation. Probably won’t even have time to read it. From a safe, pragmatic, position they have nothing to gain from sticking their necks out.
The tactics are irratating the crap out of the Liberals, prodominantly, and all of us who want them to stand up strong on this important issue. I can bet you Snowden-James ,for instance, will fighting tooth and nail to win over caucas. Hope they oppose “legislation suspending land rights and abolishing the permit system�.
At the same time, they might judge it a pointless fight with some risks. The Libs would milk it and you and i are not the ones they will be trying to pull the votes from.
Brough hasn’t yet explained how removing the permit system and revoking native title will combat child sexual abuse. He has said that the “permit system wasn’t preventing the child sexual abuse, so we should get rid of it” which is a non sequitur.
Pat Anderson said the Government should pause the legislation and start consulting with aboriginal people. I agree with her.
I think the Brough & Howard appoach is just more white man’s “solution” imposed on aboriginal people still struggling with losing their lands, their identity and their culture. I don’t think the end result will be any more successful than Howard’s ill advised commitment of Australia to the US war in Iraq.
Hey, talking of Brennans..this time the Australian branch.. how come nothing heard from that meddlesome priest, Frank Brennan sj, on these matters? Have they locked him up in the vatican?
But oh so Pearson! He’ll be grinning like a Cheshire cat by the end of the week.
Now, that would wipe the smile from his face.
On the wedge, I think this issue is too important to play politics with. Rudd should oppose the legislation as ill informed, ill advised and ineffective in dealing with the range of problems besetting aboriginal communities.
At the very least, the legislation must be fully checked by the Human Rights and Equal Opporturnity Commission - which has not been privy to any part of the legislation yet.
He’s been pretty vocal on some other matters lately. I forget where I read this - but it was in something he wrote this year or last - but he said he’d taken a decision to stop speaking out on Indigenous issues so as to counteract the phenomenon where white fellow travellers’ voices are heard louder than those of actual Indigenous people. I’m sure he’s got some strong views about it in private though.
I think Rudd is going to keep his support locked in. If he or others in the shadow cabinet have issues with the plan they can overturn it in a few months time. It’d be really easy to shut it down from the government benches, all you have to do is say that the plan was misconceived and that it was an election stunt etc.
God this election is making politics dull.
It’s kinda fun to watch the government flailing around.
Depending on what happens in the Senate, though, maybe or maybe not.
Delrio correctly notes that, “The wedge politics… won’t resonate… because there is no fear element or hip pocket politics” involved. What an astounding and accurate description of the Australian political herd mentality!
A Howard government fresh from lambasting states for alleged lack of competency ( actually lack of funding because the money is wasted by Howard on his personal white elephants like wars, corporate welfare, tax cuts for the rich and Xmass Island , offers a program up in cost from the mere $tens of millions the PM boasted a month or so ago(7.30 Report )to half a $billion and counting, today.
Yet Delrio is correct. The public won’t be able to make the connection…
Like wise “fear”. After Dr. Haneef; after W……..s and after media reports on the harm already done by the government’s interventions in NT communities like Robinson River, the public still won’t “get” that what the government is about is setting precedents for micromanagement in ALL people’s lives.
They STILL haven’t worked out who the REAL “terrorists” are. And probably never will, even if they jumped up and bit’em in the face!
I agree with both points Mark.
Rudd simply needs to agree to the legislation to keep things going but insist on a sun-set clause for some things. And make the leases revert after 5 years or require additional approval. There are ways to support the drive but go against aspects of the bill.
I mean they can run some amendmants to the bill - which will get defeated but it shows their position on some things.
When do we call this what it is?
Fascism.
Imagine if they banned porn in poor white areas.
This is power mad arrogant Joe Beserker Peterson style hillbilly fascism.
Unless Brough shit and the ratfaced rodent are just letting off steam?
The Opposition is trying to juggle its support for the crackdown on child abuse with its concerns over changes to the permit system to access Aboriginal land and the Commonwealth takeover of dozens of communities.
Labor’s Jenny Macklin says Caucus will decide how to deal with the legislation this morning.
“The Government will use their numbers to push this legislation through and unfortunately it will be another demonstration of their arrogance,” she said.
Labor held a string of briefings late last night to settle its tactics, but MPs were tight-lipped on the party’s plans.
It seems Labor does have concerns over the scrapping of Permits and the taking over of communities, but admit that Ratty has the Numbers to ram it through regardless.
Maybe they won’t be able to ram it through.
Tony Windsor (Independent Federal Member for New England) said on AM this morning he couldn’t support the 500 pages of legislation today without actually reading and understanding it.
This issue won’t play out in more progressive (green) liberal seats - so there may even be a backbench revolt from the likes of Baird, Moylan and Georgiou. They probably won’t like this devious and inneffective legislation and also realise it could cost them a lot of votes.
You people are in for some very rude shocks if you you think Rudd is merely acquiescing to avoid succumbing to “wedge politics.” Rudd is far more authoritarian than Howard.
professor rat
Imagine if they treated aboriginal communities the same way they treat poor white communities.
John, you may be right, but in any case come November Rudd’s the one who is going to have to preside over the intervention and actually try to make it work. This might be an additional reason for staying mum and working out the angles.
FDB
Don’t get me wrong, I am not criticisng Rudd one bit. I have no time for the Luvvies’ desire to maintain dysfunctional zoos which seem to provide them with such spiritual sustenance.
John Howard’s “emergency” is like a surgeon watching a patient slowly bleed to death on a hospital trolley and only taking action when cardiac arrest happens. The thing in the full report that still gets me is the discussion of Ti Piriti and Kia Marama (or something like that), two long-running New Zealand programs that seem to be effective and have been operating for nearly twenty years, and a similar NT program was shut down (without evaluation) years ago.
Links to analyses of results from these two programs were not included in the report, but by recidivism rates they are pretty darn promising (Te Piriti “graduates” have approx 5% recidivism rate for sexual offences and is the “Mark 2″ version of Kia Marama - does JWH’s program offer 95% success?)
Kia Marama evaluation
Te Piriti
David Bath
And all “coloured people” are the same, right?
Elsewhere: Bartlett - legislation to be rushed through Parliament.
joe2 said “the Brough faux sincerity makes me me want to reach for the chuck bucket.”
What you are saying is that he doesn’t care about child abuse.
joe2, when did you stop beating your wife?
ALP Position.
Caucus resolved this morning to seek to amend the legislation to remove clauses exempting it from the Racial Discrimination Act, a Labor source said.
Instead, Labor wants the Bill to clarify that it would qualify as “special measures” under the Racial Discrimination Act, meaning it would be allowed as positive discrimination.
Labor also opposes removing the permit system from Aboriginal land and wants a statutory review of the laws after 12 months.
John Greenfield
No, not all colored people are the same, but
(1) There are common threads to peoples dispossessed by a technologically advanced culture. Canada and New Zealand seem to have made much more progress than we here in Oz.
(2) Why I picked up on the NZ programs was because the report did, and because these programs have already been proceduralized and tested, and thus actionable, rather than more abstract recommendations.
(3) I’d agree specifics of the Te Piriti program may not translate to Australia, but the methods used to develop the program could be applied here. If the NT program (about 10 years ago, which apparently had some similarities to the NZ ones) had been evaluated before being shut down, and shown to be an abject failure, then I’d be a fool to recommend similar programs.
(4) The results from the earlier Kia Marama program were not as “culturally sensitive” (i.e. were more culture independent) and still seem to have given very useful results, especially after some refinements 5 or so years after starting. If the kiwis can cut recidivism by a factor of 10, then we’d have to be pretty stupid not to cut recidivism by a factor of 3 - something not to be sneezed at.
And The Brough is still a Wedging.
But despite Labor’s overall support of the Bills, Mr Brough attacked the Opposition, saying he does not believe it will follow through with the intervention if it is elected.
“I don’t think for one moment that Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin and the rest would actually fulfil their duty to these children in the way that we’ve outlined here,” he said.
“joe2 said “the Brough faux sincerity makes me me want to reach for the chuck bucket.â€?
What you are saying is that he doesn’t care about child abuse.
joe2, when did you stop beating your wife?”
Wow, the Razor wedgie!
Hurtin’ like hell.
Labor’s position as stated on the 7:30 report tonight was that “they had concerns about the removal of the permit system and the 5 year land grab and would pass amendments, but Caucus has decided to allow passage of the legislation whether their amendments are accepted of not.”
There will apparently be a 1 day Senate inquiry on it next week which will most likely proceed as a formality.
So its capitulation with a token gesture. Even though they are actually suspending the Racial Discrimination Act as part of the legislation - obviously because it IS racist . . .
Their amendments were a review in 12 months, to not suspend the racial descrimination act? and to keep the permist system - a fairly clear indictaion that Labor will amend the laws if they get in power.
Those who believe we should waste valuable time on putting people through a trial in a court, wasting taxpayer’s money and time, are trying to help murderes escape their due punishment and in fact are encouraging murderers to copy each other.
We should take murderers and execute them immediately and not listen to the namby pamby people who dont care about the safety and security of the people and would rather help these people to escape back into the community by the trickery of smart lawyers provided at tax payers expense. It is time we got tough criminals and let the law speak harshly to these people who would ignore the rights of everyone.
We should suspend the automatic right to trial of those accused of murder - we should also suspend the racial descrimination act so people through silliness try use the law and end up slowing down our new laws, these people dont care about stopping child sexual abuse…etc..
The logic behind Brough/Howard suspension of the racial descrimination act.
These people are truly truly sick.
Everyone:
If this bill goes through, you can kiss goodbye to the unity of the Commonwealth Of Australia.
This is one of history’s tipping points.
If the bill goes through, moves towards full sovereignty by Aboriginal groups will be impossible to stop …. and that will be followed quickly by international recognition and support [including unwanted and unasked for support!] …. and even more rapidly by Australian businesses falling over themselves to join in the international scramble to carve-up resources and assets in lands that used to be part of the former Commonwealth Of Australia.
If the bill does go through then Howard, Brough, Rudd and the Governor-General will each have made themselves places in history …. but not the places they might have wished.
Since the Governor-General is such a champion of Aboriginal Rights and Culture, perhaps it would be more useful to write to him to request that he doesn’t give the legislation Royal Assent.
That would really stuff Howard up.
Interesting Quote from thne GG’s Media Release re his recent vist to the Top End.
The visit is part of an ongoing program by the Governor-General to visit remote communities. In May last year, to support The Year of the Outback, the Governor-General and Mrs Jeffery travelled along the Birdsville Track and then on to Charleville and Longreach. A short time later he travelled to Wiluna and the Tanami Desert where he met elders and representatives of the Tjurabalan people.
Your Excellency, if you are REALLY concerned about Indiginous Australians, put your money where your mouth is and don’t give this legislation Royal Assent.
Frank Calabrese - I think that if push came to shove, Howard would simply find himself another Governor-General.
He already has - himself. The GG couldn’t be more irrelevant. I can’t even remember his name.
Mark, Frank C. and The Feral Abacus:
The Governor General, Major General M. Jeffery, is duty bound to refuse assent. No ifs, buts or maybes. It is a clear choice between the welfare our Aboriginal fellow citizens …. and …. the inevitable disintegration of the Commonwealth Of Australia.
It is a costly tragedy that can be avoided but only by courage and steadfastness over the coming days.
Isn’t it strange …. the Ministry of Glorious Propaganda that pretends to be a news media in Australia have said next to nothing about the concern shown for Aborigines by previous Governors-General …. nor have they explained how we will get on when the Torres Strait Islands gets independence, an independence backed and supported by the rest of the world; in case you haven’t noticed, T.S.I. also includes Bamaga, on the mainland.