As a quick update to my last post, I’d like to draw folks’ attention to two informative posts from Cam at Polemica – one which reproduces Peter Garrett’s speech in Parliament yesterday, and one which links to Parliamentary Library digests [pdf] on the bills passed by the House of Representatives.
The Senate Committee noted that these emergency bills do not change any laws “relating to violence or sexual abuse in Indigenous communities”, that there was no consultation with indigenous groups and that “most concerning feature of the Bill is the symbolic message that it sends to the judiciary, and the judicial uncertainty it may create”. Such is emergency governance [as] it becomes a series of adhoc decisions by the executive.
I think we can say clearly and authoritatively that this is bad governance.
It’s an absolute disgrace that these bills are being rushed through parliament without proper scrutiny given their importance. Mal Brough predictably responded to this argument on Lateline with “every night we wait, another kiddie is sexually abused”, and showed his true colours by dismissing the notion that people might have any rights to challenge the government in the courts and embracing paternalism. The outcry that greeted the proposed suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1998 when the Wik legislation was passed appears to be much muted almost ten years on, with very little criticism of the actual suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act involved in these bills. The degree to which we as a nation have accommodated ourselves so easily to rank authoritarianism and a flagrant abuse of legal protections and civil rights should be a matter of shame for all of us – not least the leadership of the ALP, who really are under an obligation as an opposition to at least point out what’s occurring. That’s been sacrificed, of course, in the race for electoral gain, just as the legislation is motivated largely by electoral gain.
For the federal ALP this is easily as disgraceful as Tampa, the only difference now is that many of us don’t expect any better from them. Reluctant preferences will be awarded at the ballot box.
Well said, Mark. In the intervening years we have learnt nothing and forgotten a lot.
Lateline has really been ruined over this Fed indigines stunt. First thing happened after the reactives “capture” of the ABC post- tragic 2004 election, was the coopting of Lateline and its at the time good, reputation to peddle Howard and Brough’s racist junk last year.
And it is still stubbornly being carried on, in a state of denial from those running it at the program, in the face of all the errors and grief created in the interim.
To be witness to the travesty that occured last night involving an embarrassed-looking Jones trying to gladhandle an erratic and overwrought minister through yet another publicity junket for the government, was a trying experience, indeed.
The Michelle Grattan “Age” report of a month ago, involving ministerial rorting of aboriginal funds was yet again studiously avoided, in the head-long rush to provide Brough with a soapbox for his soap-opera disclosure how he could sleep at night, having saved the little children from the predations of the wicked state governments and aborigines.
In short, the most overwrought preformance by a government minister since Sen. Coonan’s awful Sarah Bernhardt concerning those pesky Labors allegedly burgling the Future Fund for broad band
There’s also the statement by the authors of Little children are sacred that the legislation doesn’t address their findings either. All this before the non-core stuff falls by the wayside.
For those wanting more info on the Legislation presented yesterday, FaCSIA have this very useful contribution today.
The aboriginal ‘problem’ has existed for just over two hundred years, coincidently the same amount of time since the white man arrived here. How did the aboriginal population survive the previous forty thousand years in relative peace without the white mans intervention ?
Perry, Aboriginal migration from south-east Asia occurred at least 60,000 years ago, possibly a lot earlier, and in at least several migratory waves. We don’t really know for sure how long ago it began. We think the entry point was probably in the north-west of Australia and from there Aboriginal peoples gradually spread and stretched a membrane of human culture across the whole land mass.
By the time of the first European contact in the 17th century we know now, as the early European settlers did not, that the Australian Aborigines had fanned out across this vast, in many ways seemingly inhospitable continent, and split up into around 700 tribes. We know now that they lived sufficiently separate lives to develop different languages, technologies, mythologies and even physical appearance.
Lacking domesticable animals and cultivable plants, Aboriginal culture was necessarily based on hunting and gathering. Yet we also know now their social organisation had developed an extraordinary complexity and that their tribal social units had developed profound spiritual as well as material ties with the localities they inhabited.
I don’t think Mal is across post-Colonial Theory, and I don’t think he gives a toss about the impact of the dominent culture on minority groups. I doubt he even acknowledges a dominent culture. It certainly is easier that way, I can feel the complexities and doubts melting away……
Mark: you say…
You are so right! Personally, I see the next federal election not so much as a test of John Howard’s skill as a charater test of the Australian Citizenry given the raft of flagrant abuses over recent times, and especially the blatant disconnect between problem and "solution" in this particular issue.
David Marr (QE26) put it pretty well
Andrew Barlett’s "Shrugging our shoulders at torture" is probably more generous to John and Janet Citizen than warranted
mark says:
“Rank authortiarianism” has its place in the management of the affairs of the worldgets out of hand. Such things as bouncers, screws and red-faced NCO’s exist for a purpose and have a useful job to do, mostly when “rank autonomians” want to do their own thing eg molest children and get away scot free.
Mark is shocked, shocked! that “the legislation is motivated largely by electoral gain”. This brazen bit of democratic politicking by democratic politicians has given him a touch of the vapours. Someone fetch him his fainting couch, so he can safely fall into a swoon.
I am sorry to be the one to shatter his Platonic illusions but that is how democracies work. Our system of democratic parliamentary accountability relies on the reconciliation of populist politics with proper policies. If Howard’s authoritiarin policies are found guilty of catering to the majority then so much the better.
Its pretty evident that local authorities have let matters “get out of hand” in the NT. THe Territories govt is a bit of a wank. It is not a state, it is a federal district, so Howard is within his constitutional rights to step in and take over.
And the less said about some of the NT’s indigenous councils the better. The various notions of “self-determination” in the Aboriginal rights industry have been more or less discredited. Tell me, how did Clarke become boss of ATSIC again?
These people were sitting on their hands whilst a holocaust befell the youngest and most vulnerable members of their community. Their “cry foul” now would have had more credibility had they done something more useful back then.
People close to me, who lived in the remote outback for more than a decade, and who have far more aboriginal “bush cred” than any of these characters, are relieved that Howard is finally doing something. And these people are far more DIY leftist than anything mark could ever hope to be. As in most things, “everyone is conservative about what he knows best“.
The NT aboriginals are no different. I have visited these settlements and seen the results of rampant anomie at first hand. Every breed, whether lesser or not, cannot long live without the law. The locals desperately need legitimate authority. Since civilian law was ineffective, the next best course of action is martial law.
Well, all you’re demonstrating is that you have no respect, Jack, for the liberal maxims regarding the rights of citizens and parliamentary process – just like Brough and co. You’re no conservative, either. You may as well come out of the closet as a populist authoritarian and be done with it. It would certainly save us all a lot of reading time.
Jack knows jack-sh!t, me thinks.
Jack,look me old China, that you are intelligent and have an excellent grasp and vocabulary of the English language is to be admired,in fact I think your wit and put downs are in a class of their own.However Jack your comments about Aboriginal emergency legislation being in some way connected to, reconciliation of populist politics with proper policies is arrant nonsense.
Aboriginals have been treated like fucking maggots since 1788 and nothing you can say is going to change that fact. I am one, who has seen up close, and yes Jack, that close I could smell the fear out of these people of the white man.
Howard is the left overs of the bully boys that first landed on these shores,that you believe he has honest intentions/or it is how populist policies are formed and that some good may come out of it,is absolute bollicks. There is an hidden agenda here,it is about winning an election and a land grab end of story.
Mark on 8 August 2007 at 7:15 pm
Overwhelming bi-partisan support for the indidenous emergency legislation somehow implies “no respect…for parliamentary process”? What constitutes “respect” then, uncritically towing the GREEN line?
I dont think that the provincial and tribal authorities waving their hands ineffectually at an epidemic of child molestation and then mewling and puking about process did much to protect the “rights of citizens” most at risk, namely the neglected and abused kids.
mark says:
The NT’s governmental processes are a bit of a dogs breakfast, largely the product of ad hoc constructivism over the past generation. Territorial authorities and land councils seem to spend most of their time buck-passing. Not a lot of worthwhile institutional traditions there for the conservative to conserve.
I also plead guilty to authoritarianism where it is useful and properly accountable. Authorities are needed to run complex operations. Authoritarianism is required when these organizations go hay-wire. I seem to remember Gough Whitlam taking the authoritarian federal interventionist approach when faced with a similar gang of dunderheads.
I certainly admit to populism, in cultural and financial matters. Elitist rackets like ATSIC and Macquarie Bank tend to confirm my anti-elitist suspicions.
Mark’s touching faith in cultural elites would not long last much contact with the corrupt rackets that tend to predominate in “ethnic lobbies”. They tend to privately laugh at white gullibility in such circumstances. I reccomend Tom Wolfe’s “Mau-Mauing the flak catchers” as the classic portrayal of these shake-down operations.
Proper scrutiny of important legislation, and recourse by citizens to the courts.
I’m sure you’ll find that Labor voted against the guillotine.
It’s looking more and more like an unabashed land grab that we suspected it would be when Howard first announced the plan.
Kevin Rudd’s greatest moral responsibility is to win! I am horrified at the prospect of another term from the people that brought us the Iraq war, the war on terror, Muslim bashing, gay bashing, refugee bashing, the Mersey Hosital funding, the ostrich solution to climate change, support for torture and kangaroo courts, etc, etc.
To that end KR is entitled to agree to anything that deprives Howard of a wedge issue. In boom times, up against a successful and wily opponent, an initially hostile media, and in a new political environment that massively favours incumbents, Rudd is giving us an astonishing masterclass in politics.
But please, let’s not ask him to do it with one hand tied behind his back. He’s got to do what he’s gotta do. For the sake of all of us, including the Aborigines.
wot Jenny said
How much damage is done to the social and political fabric along the way, though?
I’m in deep agreement with Darryl’s comment on another thread which I think is relevant here as well:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/08/08/beattie-versus-rudd/#comment-391228
Must be a very interesting time right now to be a Fabian, in even in spirit if not name.
One the one hand, the prevailing mainstream bipartisan political/media narrative insists that all social progress initiatives be economically quantified first and foremost while questions of morality fall more within the sphere of geopolitics.
On the other hand, there’s now the internet – for the first time in human history a truly global and interactive communications systems with immense mobilisation powers that’s not under the effective control of any single central authoritiy.
The nature of what powers and influences social and political structures, in the Western world at least, has never been so fungible if not downright mercurial that it is so far.
And it’s only gonna get more whacky.
Michael [2;37pm yesterday] you said
For an ex-Army officer, he certainly doesn’t have a handle on Strategy either …. otherwise he would have used his voice of command to shout repeatedly to his fellow Ministers “DO NOT DO THIS!! YOU DOZY BOOFHEADS!!” and then explain that walking into your own ambush and springing it on yourself is a not a good idea.
He might have been brilliant at sub-unit tactics …. but strategy? Sorry. Fail.
The 3 part plan (stabilise, normalise, or whatever the hell it was) certainly smells of a military-style approach. Entirely appropriate for a long-term social, cultural, economic challenge.
Still no answer from Brough or Howard on how their following “decisions” will address the child sexual abuse problem:
* Removing the permit system (will allow MORE people in)
* Revoking native title (the land grab which will further disempower communities)
* Lack of consultation with communities
* Exemptions to alcohol bans (will free up access to more grog – leading to more alcohol abuse)
* No funding for existing effective programs (e.g. Maningrida Community Action Plan)
* How 500 pages of legislation lobbed into parliament with one day’s notice constitutes good process and consultation
* Suspension of the Racial Discrimintation Act (so that racist legislation can be introduced)
This is just more white man’s top down policy – mainly targetted for PR purposes for the election – which will prove to be as ineffective as the preceeding string of policy and process failures to date.
Mark on 9 August 2007 at 12:50 am
That interpretation is only true if you are a “true believer” in the liberal-Left program. Count me a hardened cynic.
A better question would be “How much damage has been done to the social and political fabric” by taking the advice of liberal icons like HC Coombs?
It cant be easy being indigenous and trying to negotiate the only known passage to modernity: integration as citizens in a modern national state.
Over the past generation, liberal institutional cures have usually been worse than the disease. They have oscillated between urging them to hang onto their pre-modern tribal roots whilst exemplifying the electronic herd stampeding towards some post-modern global mirage. These contradictory signals have just made the indigenes hard place that much more rockier.
The result is that indigenous institutional arrangements are in a chaotic mess, with unaccountable authorities constantly passing the buck. ATSIC is only the most disgraceful example.
Rampant anomie has ensued with consequences accurately predicted by Durkheim over a century ago: mass suicide or other forms of generational self-destruction ie child abuse.
That is progress in post-modern sociology – the destruction of cognitive and co-operative structures. Epistemological and sociological entropy.
Howard is doing the one thing that a govt. must do, is morally obliged to do, and that is bring the law of the land to bear for a people desperately in need of its writ. One law for one nation.
The fact that the liberal-Left have almost unanimously rejected his resolution, without even a hint of remorse for the mess they have helped to create, is to its everlasting shame.
If only that were the case!
“Howard is doing the one thing that a govt. must do, is morally obliged to do, and that is bring the law of the land to bear for a people desperately in need of its writ. One law for one nation.”
Dead right Steve this is political opportunism of the highest order,how can anyone claim to be sane if they believe that John Winston Howard gives a flying fuck about the plight of Aboriginals.As for one law for one nation what a crock of shit,there are Aboriginals still out in the sticks who don’t even speak English and what’s more they have no interest in learning it.They believe that if white man wants to have dialog with them they should learn to speak Aboriginal, after all it is their country and will always be so.
This is about winning an election and a land grab nothing else,I mean after all the white man has form for pissing in the pockets of these people,and they have long memories.Most of the people who comment on this problem wouldn’t know an Aboriginal if one dropped out of the sky on their head.
Gaz on 9 August 2007 at 8:00 pm
It didnt take long for the rhetorical overkill dial to be turned up to 11. Howard & co are “insane” and “dont give a flying f*ck about the plight of Aboriginals” and talk “a crock of sh*t”. I see moderation is a one-way street.
No doubt there are “Aboriginals still out there in the sticks who dont speak a word of English and who have no interest in learning it”. That represents a failure of the state’s duty of care to its citizens. It also represents a failure of the cultural professions whose job it is to spread the word.
Speaking English is a necessary condition for raising Aboriginal life expectancy, not to mention getting decent education and earning a living sufficient to support a family. Is it any wonder that Aboriginals suffer disadvantage if they cannot communicate properly with the advantaged?
The white Australian man is not in any great hurry “learn to speak Aboriginal” and does not regard Australia as an Aboriginal “country [that] will always be so”. He is not even particularly interested in non-Anglo white culture or languages, or even traditional Anglo culture, let along black ways of life. This monocultural provincialism is perhaps lamentable. But the lament will not move many in our wide, brown philistine land.
Gaz says:
Perhaps Howard cares only about votes and nought about blacks. And perhaps ignorant racists “who wouldn’t know an Aboriginal if one dropped out of the sky on their head” are his key constituents. I dont really care one way or another.
Good intentions are not nearly enough. People want results, not just another report gathering dust, or calls for “more consultation” and “inclusive process that gives ownership”. Howard’s actions put the Aboriginal issue on the agenda in a way that the liberal-Left mantra never could. We can do without the time-wasting waffle whilst children are being abused.
Hey Jack lighten up, you are one smart dude but dont let your Uni Phd if you have one get in the way of common sense.
Jack a lot of what you say is true,but don’t give me a load of old flannel that the ends justify the means, please. Even a second year high school drop out like me can see this for what it is, don’t guild the lilly with a load of prattle.
I will have a bet with you, nothing will change with whitey’s input, this has to be achieved from within.Sending truck loads of coppers and soldiers into these communities is only going to enforce what they already believe.
As for the white man never considering this to be Aboriginal land,well that is the main reason this shit storm will go on forever.Sooner or later we are going to have to sit at a table with these people, get sorry out of the way, and then move on to building bridges with them. Ignorance of them and their culture does not help anyone.
We got 500pages of time – wasting waffle introduced into Federal Parliament this week so a bit more probably will make no difference.
What do you reckon, Jack, a regular land grab or just a pre – election special land grab?
What the hell would this possibly have to do with stopping child sexual abuse?
Jack, have you found a nice ethnic enclave somewhere where each “white man” has a certified genetically derived IQ? If not, get over your 19th century imperialist attitudes and recognise that you live in a cosmopolitan world. And nothing you can say about “cultural dries” and the need for stern measures towards Blacks is going to avail you.