If it is the former, then clearly the report is doomed to moulder in the ever-growing pile of unimplemented reports on Indigenous issues. If the latter is the case however, there may be hope for some kind of progress, if the government is able to somehow whip the relevant departments into line. I’m with Fiona Stanley on this:

“I don’t think that the housing situation [sic], which is relatively easy to fix by the way, if you really wanted to fix it you would fix it.”

Professor Stanley says senior bureaucrats who fail to act on recommendations to improve conditions in indigenous communities in the Kimberley should be sacked or have their pay cut.

“That’s where the accountability has to come in and, if it’s not delivered, someone has to pay for that,” she said.

Someone has to pay for that with their own job or their salary or something.”

And it ain’t all radical right, either. Did you see Paul Kelly’s piece yesterday on how Kevin Rudd is determined not to let the nation slip into recession? It couldn’t have been more pro-ALP if they had just reprinted a government press release.

Anyway, this is OT to the point Kim was making about journos’ and opinionistas’ fire-from-the-hip reactions to complex policy issues — which I think is a very valid point.

The main problem the left has with the Murdoch press generally (although perhaps I shouldn’t presume to speak for all of us) is that it is mostly opinion, and opinion of the radical right at that.

In other words, you wouldn’t want to wrap your fish and chips in it for fear of taint.

So much for the “independent” review. Now by rights this nobbling oughtta be a major scandal, but I don’t expect either Murdoch’s rag or the opposition to make any more of it. They won’t want to highlight just what a fiasco their beloved intervention was.

The Australian put this up as a front page story (at a time when the news cycle is being dominated by recession fears and the government’s response). It’s hard to see what more they could have made of it, DD.

Given all the joy “Murdoch’s rag” has given the left, over the last few years (l’affaire Haneef, the wheat scandal, children overboard, etc), it continually surprises me that the left isn’t a bit more grateful.

Ah well, if you want quality, unbiased journalism, I guess there’s always Green Left Weekly.

tho’ Jesus’ reported insight, Tim 6.10, about love, money, root and evil, has a certain ring of plausibility about it

standing in the way of forward.
What a wag hey, whoever it was thought it’d be a great joke to call this a CommonWealth

Is it that it is vrai, that the French legal system is predicated on the idea of the judges’ job is to get at the truth, actively investigative? This whole fetish “our” system has with the a priori rule of precedent has got knobs on it, tending as it does to make to two or more wrongs a right.

That’s very true Ken, but I think its worse than that – at least when it comes to Indigenous issues. People don’t even pay attention to anything others on their own ‘side’ are saying if it doesn’t suit. It’s why I keep pointing to Pearson’s comments – and he made plenty of them at the time – about ways the original Intervention was flawed. These were and are ignored by the pro-Howard crowd.

It is entrenched in symbolism that we can have Tony Abbott still rejecting ANY criticism or modification, despite the obvious fact that even with the best proces in the world – and this certainly didn’t even come near that – there are bound to be areas that need to be modified.

All of which means that such people don’t really give a shit about what is best for Aboriginal people – children or otherwise – they are just interested in winning the ‘debate’.