The Apology
Rudd and Macklin are demanding other parties get behind the apology to make it an apology from the whole of parliament on behalf of as broad a section of the Australian community as possible. The Opposition are refusing to do so before seeing the wording of the apology. Rudd and his government have now made it clear that the apology is only about the Stolen Generation, doesn’t place the blame at the hands of any individuals and does not come with a compensation package.
Brendan Nelson has tried to derail the apology process by claiming that modern Australians can’t be held responsible for the wrongs of the past generations even though it’s been made clear that that’s not the aim. Nelson then went on to talk about the cost of groceries and petrol (two issues which the previous government made worse by refusing to acknowledge the role of fossil fuel emissions in climate change and pushing for public transport and other alternatives to petrol) and asked how anybody could be talking about Aboriginal Australia when families are hurting from price hikes. Well, Nelson, do you know who else is hurting? Indigenous Australians are, with the 17 year gap in life expectancy.
Anybody who looks back at the past injustices and attempts to dismiss it with words about “good intentions” or questions the need for or validity of an apology is simply a racist. Rudd and Macklin have put together a plan which apologises in plain terms, doesn’t lay blame and doesn’t provide compensation. Disagreement is indefensible; we owe it to our indigenous brethren to formally apologise for what has been done to them.
NineMSN – Macklin urges support for apology
Edit: It’s probably worth linking to Andrew’s previous thread, “The Hardest Word”.
I agree completely. I don’t think Brendan Nelson is going to have much success. His arguments were completely ridiculous, particularly about there being more important issues. Sure mate… let’s just sweep this under the carpet for a few more decades. He’ll never make prime minister, plus he has a disproportioned head.
Are you aiming for a career in politics or political newspaper writing? Just curious, if you don’t mind me asking.
http://thisdevilsworkday.wordpress.com/
I enjoy the policy side of politics but I’m not sure if I’d rather be an elected representative or one of their staff. As for political writing, I’m happy to sit out here in the blogosphere and comment. There are people who do the media game much better (Barry Saunders and Mark Bahnisch).
As for “good intentions”, the removal of children was an inter-governmental policy that applied to all “half cast” “quadroon” or “octoroon” Aboriginal children in Australia.
The removals were not to protect children from abuse but to civilise those who had any hope of civilisation because they have white blood in them. In order to do this they had to be removed from their culture and familly. It was widespread policy, not isolated instances of child abuse that may have been ignorantly mishandled.
Here is the report of the 1937 inter-governmental conference at Canberra that instituted the national policy.
http://asset0.aiatsis.gov.au:1801/metsviewer/archobj?DOCCHOICE=20663.xml&dvs=1202081721934~247&locale=en
I must acknowledge Aboriginal activist Michael Anderson for alerting me to this conference as I was previously unaware of it. Anderson is presently issuing media releases on the issue.
And on the other issue of this thread,
Sam, Sam, Sam,
No! No! No!
You should have answered “I want to serve my nation, my community and my party the best way I can” And if you really do have parliamentary ambitions, “We will just have to see what the future brings”. The number 1 political rule – Dont ever tell the electorate what you are really thinking.
However, you have also broken the number 2 political rule, never miss an opportunity for self promotion.
In which case, since I notice you are indeed running for public office right now, you should have said…..
“Right now I am 100% commited to representing the community of Marchant in the Brisbane city council” (optional extra – you could throw in some fluff about the Greens have got a chance this time).
Then you say, We will have to see how the election turns out but either way….. then you go to the serving nation, community and party bit.
hope this helps.
Where is Marchant?
John, Marchant is a ward in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. It encompasses Stafford, Chermside, Gordon Park, parts of Geebung; just about everywhere between Gympie Rd and Maundrell Tce as far north as Aspley and as far south as Grange.
I grew up attending a school in what was Grange ward (now abolished and partially absorbed into Marchant) and I enjoy riding through the bikeways that run next to Kedron Brook. Marchant’s got some fantastic parks that need to be preserved. Chermside shopping centre’s getting quite big and it’s only a matter of time before someone decides that the parks around it need to be sold off for the development of units.
My top priority for the area is getting the area’s public transport upgraded. The Gympie Rd bus is at capacity and there’s very little connectivity between the buses and the major train line on the north-eastern boundary. The ward is in a gap between train lines and it’s probably a little too far away from the CBD to have an effective bus service without proper bus lanes.
My fiancee has been filling me in about how the stolen generation was all about breeding Aboriginality out and destroying a race by systematically destroying their culture, languages, traditions and families. It’s utterly despicable. I’ve told her about your blog (which is a great read for those not in the know about the happenings in Indigenous Australia) and I hope she comments.
That’s better, now you are sounding like a politician.
This page on my blog is a good introduction for the curious. “Australia’s Hidden History” http://paradigmoz.wordpress.com/australias-hidden-history/
Councillor Clifford and colleagues,
A matter that might bring together the two topics of this thread, the stolen generation and the aspirations of Green politicians.
Have you been reading my comments on Greensblog in the last 6 weeks regarding the Greens and indigenous issues?
http://greensblog.org/2008/02/01/apology-must-be-unreserved/
I say the Greens have a cultural and intelectual blockage, the legacy of being socialised in a colonial society, that prevents them from dealing seriously with indigenous issues and cultur. Even the white-green notion of the environment is radically different from the indigenous notion – the difference between wilderness and a bush metropolis. This conflict of perspective is usually repressed but breaks out occaisionally such as the conflict between Cape York Aborigines and the Wilderness Society over wild rivers laws.
Yet, for some reason, green movement and “the left”, (as an historical entity as well as its remnant today) have held indigenous issues as important to them, but only on our own terms and frameworks of understanding. To explore and understand Aboriginal perspective leads directly to contradictions with our own cultural norms including political philosophies.
e.g. Indigenous notions of mens and womens business including the sexual division of labour, political power and territory is antithetical to the feminist agenda of equality.
Vegetarianism and traditional hunting do not fit ideologically.
Traditional hunting does not go to well with national parks and conservationism.
Arranged marriages do not fit with individual liberty.
The rule of elders does not fit with notions of democracy.
But the most basic contradiction is, if land rights is true including the spiritual connections to the ancestors buried in that land, then that applies to the land that we live on too, that someone else has a more weighty claim to ownership and connection to our own home than we do. And this notion is the most intolerable of all.
Even though Aboriginal culture (and land title) is largely repressed and most Aboriginal people live lives similar to white people, the cultural values and psychological make up of Aboriginal sociology is still rooted in traditional culture, as a point of identity. e.g. an urban murri is more likely to go hunting today for cultural reasons than for economic necessity. But the cultural framework is still in place and manifests as a contemporary Aboriginal culture – which is different from “we are all Australian”.
Yet, because of our own “white” notions of what Aboriginal people and culture is, we do not explore the hard contradictory things, we repress the reality of Aboriginality and cling to our white illusions considering them to be accurate.
We adopt a psychological framework of pluralist tolerance, allowing our own preconcieved notions of Aboriginality to be the connecting point with Aboriginality – pleading ignorance as some sort of cultural respect by not concerning ourselves with internal black business which is supposed to stay in its black box.
As such, it is easy for (for example) the Greens to adopt shallow tokenistic slogans about Aboriginal issues such as human rights, an apology or close the gap, but these slogans are generated by white notions of reality and do not connect in real terms with Aboriginal people themselves nor with the policies and proposals that arise from Aboriginal people.
It is easy for white Australia to reach consensus on what reconciliation is and proclaim it as a principle, even from the floor of parliament. But until we. especially greenies, can reach some form of consensus with Aboriginal Australia about what the Australian landscape and ecology actually is, then we are embracing our own self generated illusion about what nature and the earth are and using that as the foundation of our green politics – an inherently flawed colonial paradigm
My advice and Challenge to Sam and the other young Jedi apprentices is to explore indigenous policy more deeply, make real connections with Aboriginal people – and dont neglect that connection as the Qld. Greens did when they had an active branch on Palm Island including a Green elected as mayor. Such a profound connection was historical, it could have created a whole new wave of indigenous policy. But it was ignored, the greens do not even acknowledge the only ever Green elected (as a green) in Qld.
Go beyond the slogan campaigns and dare to create something in substance – it hasn’t been tried since Keating with native title and ATSIC.
Right now the Greens are in a position in the senate to negotiate policy. Down south they seem to have some influence in some local government.
However, in the not too distant future, could be as close as an early double dissolution, but some time in the next decade, the Greens will have considerably more influence in the senate and perhaps other places. It is you, young Jedi apprentices, who will be managing that new power. Some may even be won over to the dark side and accept Labour or a “new conservative” preselection somewhere, but the policy challenge is the same for all parties because the simple truth is the consistency of paternalistic indigenous policy over the last 100 years has caused most of the problems we try and tackle today.
Australian history (for those who share my nationalistic tendencies) demands a new policy framework to follow up on the evolution of Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating. Today’s Greens are just giving petty commentary to the old fasioned policies of the ALP and coalition. they have not, yet, seriously applied themselves to the essential Australian social crisis.
This, young Jedis, is your destiny, to develop an indigenous policy of substance!
Indigenous policy, the final frontier. These are the voyages of starship Green. Its five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no politicians have gone before.
But beware young Jedis, there are those in the Qld. Greens who are strong in the dark side, who do not consider indigenous issues to be Green issues. They will attempt to bend you mind and distract you from your quest and destiny.
May the force be with you!
John, indigenous issues is definitely a policy area where many parties fall flat. My thinking is that we’re still trying to apply white law (even though it’s not as racist as it used to be) to a culture which has developed independently and as such is somewhat incompatible. Things like arranged weddings, as you say, do not mesh well with western ideas of individual liberty.
My fianceé is quite interested in talking to you about Torres Straight Islander culture and probably has a whole heap of questions for you about both that and mainland Aboriginal Australian cultures. I had a read of your Hidden History page on your blog and sought out a bit more information on Wikipedia about the different linguistic groups and the different peoples.
There are a number of areas where green issues overlap with black issues (such as land management) and the task which must be undertaken by all in both movements is working together to achieve success in both areas. In New Zealand, the Green Party and Maori Party have similar voting records and work together on certain issues. I don’t know if an “Aboriginal Party” is a political reality given Australia’s size, electoral system and the diversity of views within the Aboriginal community at large (Noel Pearson is but one voice); I would still like to see both groups working together to get each others’ issues heard properly in parliaments across the nation.
I was also thinking of offering you a writing spot here, are you interested?
Hi Sam,
I do not fit your description…… “Public Polity is a group blog maintained and edited by progressive university students in their twenties.”
If you can broaden your definition to include an old fart with a pathological resentment of academia then I would be interested. Contact me by email if you want to follow up.