Sunday 23 March 2008

March Bulletin

Gee, hello there.
I was going to begin this Bull tin by remarking that the year is marching on, but that would be just too corny, so instead of starting by saying that the year’s marching on, I’m starting by saying that I’m not starting by saying that the year’s marching on.

Oh! Are you still with me?

Were you appalled by the latest from East Timor? I am ashamed to admit that for just a moment I thought they should go back to being part of Indonesia because they seem to be more interested in guns than politics – but, of course, I slapped myself on the wrist and told myself to get real. You may be interested in an article on the political parties in East Timor in 2001 – fifteen of them in all: hardly evidence of indifference to the political process. Here’s the link:
http://www.yale.edu/gsp/east_timor/ppp1.doc
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While we’re on matters of great moment, you may recall that I emailed a link to GetUp last month re The Apology, and drew attention to a document answering frequently asked questions. Since then I have become aware that some people were unable to download the document. It is included here as the next post. I am aware of the huge percentage of Australians who think the apology should not have been made. The percentage is so high that I have to assume that a significant number of people receiving this email from me are of that opinion. I would ask anyone so disposed to read the the next post, and, after that, if you still think the apology should not have been made, email me with your reasoning on the matter. I undertake to enter into a respectful dialogue with you. Let me explain my motive here. I do not presume to have the answers. This is me taking personal responsibility for my opinion on the matter. You see, if you really do not believe the apology should have been made, you almost certainly know something I don’t know. That’s why I want to hear from you about it. I just want to be as fully informed as possible. You will be doing me a favour.

There is a limitation on this offer. It applies only to people who received this bulletin directly from me by email, i.e. I will not respond to anyone to whom it has been forwarded. The point being that I have a personal relationship with the fifty people in my monthly email group. I can expect that anyone taking up my offer will do so in good faith. I cannot know that other people will.

The pictures of Wooli are now up on Flickr. There’s too many of them, but I just couldn’t help myself. Don’t try to work your way through all of them. Just click on the group icon at the right hand side of the screen and scan the thumbnails for shots you might want to take a closer look at. There’s also pictures of soft toys I have made. Too few of them, but there will be more in due course. Here’s the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7899872@N08/
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We’ve watched a film recently called Mountain Patrol by Lu Chuan, about an attempt to save Tibetan Antelope from poachers. If the subject sounds a bit, you know, Byron Bay, it’s actually not about how we can save the world by eating organic food and having colonic irrigation. The story about volunteers opposing poachers is really only the vehicle for a harrowing meditation on what it means to be human. Five stars from me. It’s available from Video Ezy.

I did a lightning trip to Sydney on 9-10/2 to collect John’s work from the Graduate Exhibition mentioned in my last Bull tin. It was the most wonder full trip. Yes, trip! If you’d like to read about it, see my blog (link below). While I was driving I listened to, among other things a recording of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. OMG!!! What a triple tripping triumph. Have a read of my thoughts about it, if you like. It follows my account of the trip to Sydney. Warning – the writing about the Wake is even more weird than normal. Purposely.
http://twogreytoes.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
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Now here’s something you might really be interested in – talk about keeping the good wine till last. The link below will take you to a Nicholson animated cartoon called Sorry Lot. When the cartoon ends there will be a dialogue box which enables you – if you want to – to receive notification of new cartoons. They’re free and usually too good not to know about.
http://media.theaustralian.news.com.au/nich/20080222_sorry_lot.htm

Go jollily.

Apology to stolen generations – questions and answers

This material has been taken from the GetUp Website
This material has been prepared by Reconciliation Australia to help Australians understand the background to the apology that will be made to the stolen generations by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

1. Who are the stolen generations?
2. How do we know these people’s stories are true?
3. Why is it important to apologise to the stolen generations?
4. Why should Australians today apologise for something we aren’t responsible for?
5. What does an apology mean to me as a non-Indigenous Australian?
6. Why should we apologise when many Aboriginal people are actually better off because they were removed from dysfunctional families?
7. Will an apology lead to claims for compensation from members of the stolen generations?
8. Why is the word ‘sorry’ important as part of the apology?

1. Who are the stolen generations?
The term ‘stolen generations’ refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians who were forcibly removed from their families and communities by government, welfare or church authorities as children and placed into institutional care or with non-Indigenous foster families. The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children began as early as the mid 1800s and continued until 1970.
This removal occurred as the result of official laws and policies aimed at assimilating the Indigenous population into the wider community.
The 1997 Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found that between 1 in 10 and 3 in 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from 1910 to 1970.
The Western Australian and Queensland governments have confirmed that in that period all Indigenous families in their States were affected by the forced removal of children. It’s not possible to know precisely how many children were taken because government records of these removals are poor and many government files are inaccurate.
The stolen generation should not be confused with other government policies which aimed to help Aboriginal children from remote areas to go to school with their parents full consent. It should also not be confused with the removal of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children from dysfunctional families under welfare policies that continue to apply today.

2. How do we know these people’s stories are true?
All State and Territory governments have acknowledged past practices and policies of forced removal of Indigenous children on the basis of race. As part of this formal acknowledgement, all State and Territory governments have apologised for the trauma these policies have caused.
The report of the Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, called the Bringing them Home report, contains extensive evidence of past practices and policies which resulted in the removal of children. It also details the conditions into which many
of the children were placed and discussed the negative impact this has had on individuals, their families and the broader Indigenous community.
The Inquiry took evidence from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, government and church representatives, former mission staff, foster and adoptive parents, doctors and health professionals, academics, police and others. It received over 777 submissions, including 535 from Indigenous individuals and organisations, 49 from church organisations and 7 from governments.

3. Why is it important to apologise to the stolen generations?
The Bringing Them Home report found that the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities has had life-long and profoundly disabling consequences for those taken and has negatively affected the Indigenous community. For many of the children, removal meant that they lost all connection to family, traditional land, culture and language.
It never goes away. Just ‘cause we’re not walking around on crutches or with bandages or plasters on our legs and arms, doesn’t mean we’re not hurting. Just ’cause you can’t see it doesn’t mean … I suspect I’ll carry these sorts of wounds ’til I the day I die. I’d just like it to be not quite as intense, that’s all. Confidential evidence 580, Queensland. Bringing Them Home Report
The reality of Australia’s stolen generations is not a thing of the distant past. Children were being inappropriately removed from their families by Australian authorities until 1969. Many people affected by the tragedy of the stolen generations are still alive today and live with its effects.
The Bringing Them Home report recommended that the first step in healing is the acknowledgment of truth and the delivery of an apology. It is the responsibility of the Australian Government, on behalf of previous Australian governments that administered this wrongful policy to acknowledge what was done and apologise for it.
This issue is a ‘blank spot’ in the history of Australia. The damage and trauma these policies caused are felt everyday by Aboriginal people. They internalise their grief, guilt and confusion, inflicting further pain on themselves and others around them. It is about time the Australian Government openly accepted responsibility for their actions and compensate those affected.
Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter (In Buti A, Bringing them home the ALSA way)

4. Why should Australians today apologise for something we aren’t responsible for?
Individual Australians are not providing the apology. The apology is being provided by the Australian Government in recognition of policies of past governments. Similarly, the former Australian Government apologised to Vietnam veterans for the policies of previous governments. The current Government is apologising for wrongful policies of governments. No individual Australian is being asked to take personal responsibility for actions of past governments.

5. What does an apology mean to me as a non-Indigenous Australian?
Following on from apologies already made by all State and Territory governments and the churches, an official apology to members of the stolen generations by the Australian Government is an important step towards building a respectful new relationship between us as Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Respectful relationships are essential if we are to solve persistent problems.
In this way, the apology will allow us to work together more effectively towards closing the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children - the starkest evidence of how government policies have failed. It is an important starting point in healing the wounds and an historic step forward for our nation that we can be proud of.
The apology is not an expression of personal responsibility or guilt by individual Australians. But it does reflect our Australian values of compassion and a fair go, and allows the victims of bad policy to feel that their pain and suffering has been acknowledged. It’s important that Australians understand the background to the apology so they understand why it’s a good thing for the nation – it is this understanding that will realise the great potential of this historic moment to move our nation forward.
These days I don’t understand why it should be such a big deal to say sorry for the injustices that have been done to Indigenous people. I know some people feel differently but, to me, saying sorry just feels necessary as a first step towards moving forward together. Daniel Johns, lead singer of Silverchair

6. Why should we apologise when many Aboriginal people are actually better off because they were removed from dysfunctional families?
It is true that some Indigenous children were removed from their families on genuine welfare grounds. It is also true that some children who were removed received some advantages, for example in education, but the overwhelming impact of the forced removal policy was damaging.
People involved in the removal of children genuinely believed they were doing the right thing. But as we now know, they were not.
It’s important to understand that the “stolen generations” refer to those children who were removed on the basis of their race alone. In contrast with the removal of non-Indigenous children, proof of neglect was not always required to remove Indigenous children. That one of their parents was of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent was enough.
The predominant aim of the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was to absorb or assimilate children with mixed ancestry into the non-Indigenous community. As Brisbane's Telegraph newspaper reported in May 1937:
Mr Neville [the Chief Protector of WA] holds the view that within one hundred years the pure black will be extinct. But the half-caste problem is increasing every year. Therefore their idea is to keep the pure blacks segregated and absorb the half-castes into the white population. Perhaps it will take one hundred years, perhaps longer, but the race is dying.
The Bringing Them Home report found that many children were removed solely on the basis of skin colour. Because of this, siblings from the one family who were considered to be of lighter skin colour would be removed when others were left.
The suggestion that stolen generations children were better off is untrue on any reasonable assessment of the cases where they were placed in situations of deprivation, neglect and abuse. People who were removed gave evidence to the Inquiry of their mistreatment under State care - this ranged from inadequate food and clothing, to physical, sexual and psychological abuse.
Almost a quarter of witnesses to the Inquiry who were fostered or adopted reported being physically abused. One in five reported being sexually abused. One in six children sent to institutions reported physical abuse and one in ten reported sexual abuse.

7. Will an apology lead to claims for compensation from members of the stolen generations?
The Bringing Them Home report recommended the establishment of a national compensation fund for people affected by the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The aim of the fund would be to offer reparation to those affected and avoid the courts having to deal with costly individual litigation.
An official apology is not directly related to compensation. All State and Territory governments have apologised and this has not triggered any rush of compensation claims.
The Tasmanian Government has chosen to set up a compensation fund for members of the stolen generations in that State. It has provided $5 million in capped payments to be divided among eligible people and their families. http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/speeches/stolen.html
The Government of South Australia is also considering establishing a fund. Queensland and New South Wales have ruled out stolen generations compensation funds, although both States are providing reparations for policies under which Aboriginal people could be put to work but not paid.
The West Australian Government announced in late 2007 the ‘Redress WA’ program to provide monetary and emotional support to people who were abused as children in State care, including members of the stolen generations.
http://www.redress.wa.gov.au/
The Australia Government has said it will not establish a fund at the national level but will direct funds to counselling services for members of the stolen generations and services that help people who were removed as children to find their families and communities.
Reconciliation for me is about recognising the past. Acting in the present. And building a better future. The Hon. Paul Lennon MP, Premier of Tasmania

8. Why is the word ‘sorry’ important as part of the apology?
The word ‘sorry’ holds special meaning in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. In many Aboriginal communities, sorry is an adapted English word used to describe the rituals surrounding death (Sorry Business). Sorry, in these contexts, is also often used to express empathy or sympathy rather than responsibility.
During the 2007 election campaign, then Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd also recognised the significance of the word sorry:
“… simply saying that you’re sorry is such a powerful symbol. Powerful not because it represents some expiation of guilt. Powerful not because it represents any form of legal requirement. But powerful simply because it restores respect”

9. Why didn’t the former Australian Government say sorry?
In 1997, the recommendation of the Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families for an official apology was not taken up by the new Australian Government led by John Howard. Mr Howard argued that it was not appropriate for the current Government to apologise for the actions of past governments. He also said he was concerned that a formal admission of wrongdoing would lead to compensation litigation.
All State and Territory governments did issue formal apologies in the period following the Inquiry and these did not generate a rush of compensation claims.
In 1999, the Australian Government moved a motion for reconciliation with an expression of:
“deep and sincere regret that indigenous Australians suffered injustices under the practices of past generations, and for the hurt and trauma that many indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices.”

10. Will the apology mean that reconciliation has been achieved?
An apology from the Australian Government to the stolen generations is one important step in achieving the overarching objective of reconciliation which is to close the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. It is important because it removes a barrier to us establishing a more respectful relationship as Indigenous and non-Indigenous fellow Australians.

Closing the life expectancy gap involves consistent, long term action by governments, and by all Australians, in health, education, housing, employment etc and also in building respectful relationships that generate better outcomes for us all.
Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton suggests that a formal apology will achieve two things: firstly it will aid in the restoration of a sense of dignity and legitimacy to those who have suffered, and secondly it will acknowledge the serious harm done by previous governments to a class of people on the grounds of their race.
True reconciliation between the Australian nation and its indigenous peoples is not achievable in the absence of acknowledgment by the nation of the wrongfulness of the past dispossession, oppression and degradation of the Aboriginal peoples. Sir William Deane, Governor-General of Australia, 1997

Case Study: Canada's ‘Common Experience Fund’
Canada’s Indigenous population shares some of the experiences of Indigenous Australians. From the early 1880s, Indigenous Canadian children were removed from their homes on the basis of their race and placed in church-run, government funded residential schools. From 1920 until early 1970 this removal was experienced by practically all Indigenous children. These schools were created to encourage assimilation and to suppress Indigenous culture and language.
The United Church of Canada recently apologised for this “horrendous period of Canadian history” and the Canadian Government also extended a formal apology in the form of an action plan. The action plan included a statement of reconciliation in which the Canadian Government recognised and apologised for “the single most harmful, disgraceful and racist act” in their history.
The apology led to a range of lawsuits and helped Ottawa’s Government to come to a settlement with First Nation representatives. As a result of the settlement, the Canadian Government provided a $1.9 billion compensation fund for the ‘common experience’ of all people who were affected by the removal of Indigenous children. All residential school survivors are entitled to apply for the ‘common experience payment’. If the applicant is successful they receive a standard $10,000 in compensation and a further $3,000 for each year they were placed in the school. The Government has also provided an extra $3 billion in compensation to survivors who suffered sexual and physical abuse in the residential schools.
Currently 85,080 applications for the ‘common experience’ payment have been received. Of that number, 56,625 have been processed with 46,910 being successful.

Friday 7 March 2008

Johnny who?

What a pathetic coward. John Howard waits until he’s out of the country before he makes any comment about current affairs in Australia, and when he does, (in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington on Thursday 6/3/08) he pretends that he wasn’t given the most humiliating thrashing any political leader in Australia, and possibly the world, has ever had. Howard slams the Rudd government for abandoning Work Choices as though it wasn’t the single most significant issue on which Labor won the 2007 election. Oh, and he makes no reference to the fact that the party he lead to utter ignominy abandoned every last link to Work Choices after being thrashed yet again by public opinion when Julie Bishop foreshadowed opposing the abolition of AWAs in the Senate. This is not mere denial: it’s outright contempt. And it gets worse. Howard’s Washington speech was entitled “Sharing our common values”. Our common values?

Yes, that’s right, the man who lost the right to speak for the nation in the most excoriating repudiation of the values he embodied for eleven and a half years still presumes to know what Australian values are, and pretends to have the right to speak on our behalf, as if we didn’t know what we were doing when we sacked him and his fawning cling-ons at the last election. The fact that he was not prepared to say to Australians in Australia what he said to his mates in a foreign country really says it all. He’s a gutless wonder. No that’s giving him too much credit. He’s just plain gutless – the most damning proof of which is actually something else he failed to do in this country. Who was conspicuous by his absence when Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations?

Little Johnny has never embodied the values that underpin this country – doesn’t hold a candle to the Anzacs, for example, whom he was so fond of cuddling up to when in office, because he hasn’t learned anything from defeat, behaving more like Saddam Hussein claiming a great victory after the first Gulf War.

Howard hasn’t actually claimed a victory. He’s just refused to accept that he and what he actually stood for has been repudiated. Yet in his speech he said this:
“… a number of the more conservative social policies of my government have been endorsed by the new Australian government…The sincerity of its conversion will be tested by experience of office."

The man is utterly shameless. Not to mention narcissistic. He implies that the policies he refers to are his gift to the nation, and that only he could pull them off, when the truth is that they were opportunistic caricatures of what is actually needed: the NT intervention being the prime case in point. His brazen claim to be the better economic manager is another one. And the appalling state of our defense equipment is its own comment on his claim to be the bulwark of the nation’s security. Name any policy that Howard claimed to be the best at and you’ll find a white anted reality behind a façade of political machismo.

The measure of Howard the coward is that he can’t admit that he was wrong. Worse still, he hasn’t got the guts to say in his own country that he still believes that his policies are the right ones for Australia. He has to skulk off to Imperial Capital to be feted by the powerful effete (sic).

Two further observations in closing.

Firstly, everyone in Australia is aware of the fact that the only other Prime Minister to lose his seat at an election lost it over industrial relations. What most people probably aren’t aware of is that the only other political leader who clung to government beyond his parliamentary term, as Howard did in 2007, also lost the election. There's probably a lesson in that. Anyone want to write an opera about it?

Secondly, remember “Aspirational Nationalism”? Remember all those discussions about what it could possibly mean? Well, here’s another one from when Howard was treasurer: “Incentivation”. Remember that one? Remember the bagging he got for it? My point is, he didn’t learn anything from that episode. He continued to live in a world of his own out of which he thought he could gift the nation with words and phrases that didn’t even have what it takes to become clichés. John Howard is not just a coward. He’s a empty vessel. In the end it really was appropriate that he did not attend the Apology. He isn’t worthy of it.

Let him have his day in the land of the brave and the home of the free, by all means. Let him wallow in the fantasy that he is the suffering servant rejected by his own household. But please, let’s not have a blow by blow account of it in the media. Not because as left-liberals, which he so contemptuously labels anyone who recognizes him for what he is, we don’t want to hear “good news”, but because we’ve had a gut full of political pornography.

Coup disgrace, or portent of coup d’etat

Can you believe the opposition in the Parliament of Australia? The cardboard Kevin stunt was a new low point – lower than even I would have given them credit for. And while it is far from the worst thing that could happen in a representative democracy, it indicates how little regard the people involved have for those who gave them their jobs.

In case someone is asking, What’s cardboard Kevin, here’s a quick outline of the incident, preceded by what led up to it.

Until this year, the federal parliament, when in session has sat four days a week. But from now on it’s five. Well, until the government realises what a stupid idea it is, anyway. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there is to be no Question Time on Fridays. What’s more, while back benchers are expected to be in the house, dealing with parliamentary business – though not necessarily in the chamber – ministers can be out doing other stuff. This is not just new, it is unexpected and arguably unconstitutional. And it’s not just the opposition who are contesting it. Pretty well every political commentator has had a go at it. Hopefully, the trainer wheels will come off and the new team on the treasury benches will realise that just because you’re the government doesn’t mean that you can do what you like. That said, there are ways of opposing such measures, and ways of demeaning yourself and the parliament, and on Friday 22/2/08 the opposition did the latter.

There has always been too much posturing on both sides of the house, leaving insufficient time for constructive dialogue between government and opposition. But the opposition’s behaviour on that day went way beyond posturing and was actually in contempt of the parliament. They behaved like smart aleck teen agers provocatively flouting the law, defying the Speaker time after time; three of them even refused to leave the chamber when told to do so. Their self inflicted coup disgrace was bringing a cardboard cut out of the Prime Minister into the chamber to highlight his absence. This shows how little regard they have for their workplace and the people who put them there. The parliament is not the school yard. There are rules governing behaviour in the chamber – strict rules for non members in the gallery forbidding stunts and demonstrations – so that those on the floor of the house can do their job. When members on the floor of parliament start behaving as though they are at a demonstration, they are clearly in contempt of the parliament itself and the nation which elected it.

Deceitful arguments in parliamentary debates are one thing, but outright contempt of procedure suggests deeply disturbing possibilities. If things ever get seriously desperate in this country, it won’t be reds under the bed who make push come to shove.