mood: sullen.state i'm in: my own public holiday.tune: the dining rooms "tunnel" (the dining rooms rework).
my heart sunk yesterday when i read federal indigenous affairs minister mal brough's comments on the likelihood that land rights and native title will be abolished or diminished in the near future. to anyone with an inkling of intelligence, mr brough's comparison of current indigenous land rights with communism and collectivism is sheer stupidity.
mr brough said ownership of land needed to be properly mixed with economic opportunity, and that if the balance was right "the people would flourish". for indigenous people to obtain economic opportunity the likes of which mr brough refers to it would require them to sell off and leave their land for a nominal fee, to move to cities such as darwin, cairns and mount isa where more opportunities might exist. in case mr brough has not realised, such plans in the past have failed miserably. to get such a plan to work (which is essentially wholesale assimilation) would require far more investment that any government would be likely to want to make. all i see is a government with a plan to get it's hand on a whole swath of land it has been unable to touch for some time and do with it what it pleases, with contempt for its inhabitants' interests. this impression is further bolstered by the government's refusal to make amendments to its northern territory intervention laws to ensure aboriginal people are compensated for losing control of their land under such an 'emergency' intervention.
at this present stage, neither major political party is championing anything like a policy i would be willing to support on indigenous affairs. right now all i see are a few final nails being driven into the coffin of aboriginal culture and identity. i do not want to one day have to look in history books to be able to experience it.
allow me to introduce the town of robinson river. this town operates under a plan introduced the fraser government in 1977 called community development employment program (CDEP), whereby many of the townsfolk are employed essentially by the CDEP in jobs as diverse as tending the town's animals (which were soon to be used to produce goods able to be sold), building fences and gates for properties in the town to keep animals in and predators out (and earning a few people trade certificates in the process), and running the local store. this town functions remarkably well: there is almost no unemployment, school attendance is very high, abuse (of either children or adults) is not a problem and the people feel a great deal of pride in the jobs they perform, as they are in the interest of their fellow townsfolk.
forgive me if i am wrong, but i believe this town is an example of collectivism working like clockwork.
the CDEP, the mainstay of robinson river, will be disbanded soon as a part the federal government's emergency intervention to attack child abuse and quarantine welfare payments. payments will cease to the individuals previously on CDEP receipts and they will receive quarantined welfare payments. the townsfolks will no longer be employed.
another town that has achieved tangible results for its inhabitants is cherbourg. this is a town that was racked with drug and alcohol dependence and violence perpetrated by many of the town's menfolk. fed up with these issues, a local womens' group was established, and has gone about rectifying the problems through involvement of the whole community with health, education, housing and welfare, and through engaging local and state governments. they have had a great deal of success: the community is dry, and has had only one report of child abuse this year, which was reported and dealt with within the community; the number of children attending school has increased, and health outcomes have also improved. this town is a model of what can be done with some self-determination in a community, and with the support at different levels of government. The community has supported its men, and their behaviour and degree of community involvement has been improved immensely. a mens' group has now been established in cherbourg, housed in a hall on local council-donated land, so the men can teach the younger generation how to be effective community members.
fortunately, cherbourg is in queensland (safe from ludicrous federal interventions) and no initiatives here are to be axed.
if these communities can become so strong simply through self determination and government support at multiple levels, than why are they not be held up as shining lights of how indigenous folks are capable of a degree of independence and success. would it not be foolish to have recommendations from these towns brought into other communities, and, through consultation and self-determination, initiated so that they may also see similar improvements. (many of these recommendations were in the report the federal government was supposed to have acted upon when launching the current intervention, but failed to heed.) without being slightly cynical, solving problems in indigenous communities will not take a month of military intervention, or even a term or two of government.
it would be some time before we could expect to see many individuals from these communities, such as the welding girls from robinson river, take there skills to darwin or alice springs and implement them to make financial gains that could be sent home, perhaps having trained some of the younger townsfolk behind them. but i am confident it would happen. with such initiatives in place, it wouldn't be long before more than just welders would be leaving the towns. there might be plumbers and carpenters behind them, and maybe some boarders going to stay in residential colleges in universities where they may study accounting or health sciences or engineering and take these talents back to their ever more self-sufficient communities, or out into the wider community.
am i just sounding like a complete fuckwit now?
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image: public
just got a lift home. people are kind.
