After reports of child abuse and neglect amid appalling living conditions for native Australian people in some Northern Territory communities, Bush-supporting right-wing Prime Minister John Howard has awoken from a decade of barely recognizing these people's existence with a sudden crackdown on rights and liberties. The new policies are designed more to increase the governments poll numbers than to improve anyone's living conditions. This racism proves there is nothing Mr Howard and clan will not exploit for political gain.
News stories and commentary below the fold.
The 10 second version: Prime Minister John Howard has suddenly woken from a decade of indifference, realized there is child abuse and neglect amid appalling living conditions in some Northern Territory communities of indigenous Australians, and decided to do something about it: ban all alcohol, ban all pornography, have compulsory medical checks, keep half of people's welfare payments (so the government will supposedly spend it for them) and seize federal control of the people's land.
Before I comment, a few news stories about the new policies:
Indigenous plan has 'overwhelming support'
Sunday Herald Sun, 23 June 2007
PRIME Minister John Howard says the government has been overwhelmed by the public support for his plan to tackle child sexual abuse in indigenous communities.
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"There has been an extraordinary response from Australians who see the need, recognise it as a national emergency, and they are volunteering their services in a number of ways,'' he said.
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"We are determined to hit the ground running, we are determined to make a difference as soon as possible,'' Mr Howard said.
"But I do caution people not to expect things to change dramatically in a short period of time.''
Mr Howard defended the plan, which has been criticised for being heavy handed.
Scepticism and distrust greets Aboriginal reforms
Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 2007
Scepticism, confusion and distrust were today among the reactions from Aboriginal people to the Federal Government's radical reforms to curb indigenous child abuse in the Northern Territory.
The sweeping changes, which include alcohol bans and scrapping the permit system for non-Aboriginal access to indigenous land, prompted an immediate outcry from the region's two key Aboriginal organisations.
Calling the unprecedented Commonwealth intervention "hasty and ill-conceived'', director of the Central Land Council (CLC) David Ross said the move was a cynical ploy to abolish hard won land rights.
"Under the smokescreen of helping children, the Federal Government is taking the opportunity to impose its ideological agenda in relation to Aboriginal land,'' he said.
"The proposals seem to be a grab-bag of unrelated strategies aimed at a quick fix in a pre-election period.''
Aboriginal abuse plan denounced as racist
UK Guardian, 23 June 2007
The Australian prime minister, John Howard, confronted a furious response yesterday to his radical plans to deal with alcoholism and child abuse in indigenous communities, as the Aboriginal question threatened to grow into a major issue ahead of a general election.
Opponents accused Mr Howard of seizing on the issue to boost his re-election chances after he announced a ban on alcohol and pornography, and compulsory medical checks for some Aboriginal children in parts of northern Australia blighted by appalling social conditions.
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Mr Howard was standing his ground. "We've been too timid in the past about interfering," he said. "I'll be slammed for taking away people's rights but frankly I don't care about that."
'It's not about race' says Howard
NZ Herald, 24 June 2007
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has indicated his drastic measures to stamp out child neglect in Aboriginal communities may be used in the wider community, including fining families whose children fail to attend school.
Howard spent yesterday defending his plan to tackle child sexual abuse and other problems in Australia's indigenous community saying the Government had been overwhelmed by the public support.
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"It has got nothing to do with race," Howard was reported as saying. "It's got everything to do with responsibility of the parents. And it's just that the worst examples in Australia are to be found in many of these Aboriginal communities, but that is not to say that in other cases you won't get this occurring."
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Howard defended the plan, which has been criticised for being heavy handed. ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope branded the Aboriginal community measures "racist".
Those are a just a few recent articles on what has become the top Australian news story this week.
This new policy brings to the forefront of my mind the artist Albert Namatjira, who became famous in the 1950s for his watercolor on pencil landscapes that captured light and beauty in the harsh Australian outback. He was criticized by many fellow indigenous people for his non-native western art style, but he was only painting what he loved the way he knew. It's easy to admire his use of light in depicting mountains, as in Light on Ljalkaindirma: the shifting shadow. Namatjira is one of two famous Indigenous Australians remembered in the chorus of the Midnight Oil song Truganini.
I hear much support for the monarchy
I hear the Union Jack's to remain
I see Namatjira in custody
I see Truganini's in chains
...
I hear much support for the monarchy
I see the Union Jack in flames, let it burn!
I see Namatjira with dignity
I see Truganini's in chains
Albert Namatjira was never a political activist, but such a role was inevitably thrust upon him. Many white Australians expressed concern that he could not purchase the land he was painting so well. It was fifty years ago, in 1957, that Albert Namatjira was granted special Australian citizenship that no other Aborigine had ever been given. This allowed the famous artist to vote, own land, and buy alcohol. The latter right came to be his downfall. He left a bottle of rum on a car seat where a friend could get to it, was sentenced to six months in prison for supplying alcohol to other natives, which affected him so much that he never painted again. He died in 1959, aged 57.
Death at 57 sounds young, but fifty years on in the 21st century very little has changed. Despite Australian longevity being in the top half of the OECD (a few years above the USA) the average life expectancy among Indigenous males is just 59 years of age. Aboriginal people (both male and female) die an average 18 years younger than every other ethnic group in the country. Many easily preventable diseases (such as blindness-causing trachoma) that are considered "third world" and almost unheard of in western democracies, are rife in Indigenous Australian communities.
There is never any excuse for child abuse, and I'm sure there are parts of the Northern Territory where the rate of abuse and neglect is sickeningly high. The people in those communities need urgent help.
Instead, they have had a decade of neglect with John Howard as Prime Minister, followed by a sudden announcement of a crackdown on their civil rights. The proposals echo an era when the British Empire ruled the waves and the civility or savageness of a man was determined at birth by the color of his skin. I don't believe Mr Howard's plans will reduce neglect, nor will they close the 18-year life expectancy gap by even a single year. This is just another election-year popularity stunt. Child abuse, neglect, people living in appalling conditions who can expect to die in their fifties ... if there is an issue John Howard will not callously exploit for political gain, I haven't seen it yet. The sooner this vile person is removed from power, the sooner living conditions for Indigenous Australians can start to improve.
Australians will vote later this year. To me, this latest desperate Howard stunt (coming on top of so many others) has made the choice clear: do they want Australia, or Apartheidstralia. For the sake of those related to Namatjira and Truganini, whose rich culture has existed on the great desert continent for 40,000 years, I hope the people of Australia reject political racism and turn to the left.