indigenous politics
29 Feb 2008
Sorry, What About the Stolen Generations?
'Closing the gap' is surely about basic citizenship rights, writes Ruth McCausland. Dressing it up as the best response to the Stolen Generations sounds a lot like practical reconciliation.
On February 13, in the flush of the nation's new-found sense of momentum and generosity, there wasn't a lot of scrutiny of what the national apology meant in policy terms for the Stolen Generations.The reality became a little starker during Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin's interview with Kerry O'Brien on the ABC's 7:30 Report that evening. Macklin explained that housing for remote communities would be the first step "so that children can sleep safely at night". She also stressed the Prime Minister's commitment to get every Indigenous four-year-old in remote Australia into pre-school, and again reiterated her Government's priority to close the life expectancy gap. "We think the Federal Government money should ... focus particularly on the children, to make sure that the next generation ha[s] the opportunities that people in the past haven't had," she said.
Ah, the children. Indigenous children in remote communities have had a lot of government policy justified in their name in recent years. Who could disagree about the urgency of addressing the chronic rates of poverty and disadvantage those children face? But this is the point at which the voices heralding the new era in Indigenous policy start to sound kind of like the old ones.
We may be tired of the statistics but they bear repeating. Only 25 per cent of Indigenous people live in rural and remote areas of Australia: 12 per cent of Indigenous people live in the Northern Territory; and more than half of all Indigenous Australians live in New South Wales and Queensland.
We shouldn't let the Government's laudable commitment to children in remote communities divert us from the reality that housing, education and health concerns are no less pressing for the majority of Indigenous children who live in urban areas - the families of whom suffered much of the brunt of the policies of forcible removal.
Yes, the Government has to start somewhere, and yes, its commitments to time-bound goals and indicators are commendable. However, closing the gap on life expectancy, education and employment opportunities for Indigenous children is surely about basic citizenship entitlements. Dressing it up as the best response to the Stolen Generations now sounds a lot like practical reconciliation.
Thanks to Lukas
There is much for this new Government still to learn from the Inquiry into the Stolen Generations if it is indeed committed to not repeating the mistakes of the past. As well as past injustices, the Inquiry looked at contemporary removals of Indigenous children from their families through the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. The legacy of the policies of forcible removal is borne by the children of today, and any government who genuinely wishes to give those children the opportunities never afforded to their parents must understand this.
In accordance with international principles, the authors of the Bringing Them Home report introduced the holistic concept of reparations as the best response to the policies of forcible removal. Reparations include acknowledgment and apology as the first step, to be followed by guarantees against repetition, measures of restitution and rehabilitation relating to land, culture and language, as well as monetary compensation. It made specific recommendations relating to services for those affected, as well as a new framework for responding to Indigenous children who come into contact with government agencies.
Yesterday the South Australian Government announced it would appeal a judgement that saw the nation's first compensation payment to a member of the Stolen Generations. In August last year, Bruce Trevorrow was awarded $775,000 for being illegally taken from his parents 51 years ago.
There will inevitably be more claims before the courts from members of the Stolen Generations - not as a result of the apology, but on grounds such as racial discrimination, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, pain and suffering, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, loss of cultural and native title rights, labour exploitation and loss of opportunities. The Federal Government could choose to spend resources on adversarial court proceedings or it could take positive action to set up a formal compensation mechanism like that of the Tasmanian Government or proposed by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
Surely reparations for the devastating and ongoing effects of past government actions doesn't preclude concrete policy measures to ensure that all Indigenous children of this and future generations enjoy greater opportunities and choices.
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Isn’t the gap still remaining that embodied by the fact that "Terra Nullius" is still in the constitution?
Indigenous Australians: can vote and be legitimate citizens; can have legislation made about distinct needs; have had land control, education, housing (and pharmecutical company profit dependences) legislated for on behalf of the rights of being citizens; have had prior ownership of land recognised; have been apologised to for having had children removed from family and culture and thereby abused; but have not been awarded the most basic dignity of recognition that this land was inhabited by human beings in 1788.
Believing in an Animist culture, is not the same thing as being animals. It is not even the same as being animalistic (that’s one of the words used in the chapter of the Bible called Hebrews, which defines who ought not be given creedence in the "last days"), and can not define Aboriginal Australians as non-believers in One God, as many have tried.
Time to start the campaign for a yes vote in the promised referendum to repeal Terra Nullius in the constitution I reckon.
Word Sword Sworn
At Hath
That Hat
Inshallah no poetry farce
By Solomon’s Seal will my past
No word not true can last
Curaezprid,
Terra Nullius is not, and never has been, in the Constitution, or in any law in Australia, federal or state: in every Pastoral Lease, the following clause had to be inserted:
“ And reserving to aboriginal inhabitants of the said State and their descendants during the continuance of this lease full and free right of egress and regress into upon and over the said lands and every part thereof and in and to the springs and surface waters therein and to make and erect and to take and use for food, birds and animals ferae naturae in such manner as they would have been entitled to if this lease had not been made. ”
What did that last clause mean, ‘in such manner as they would have been entitled to if this lease had not been made.’ ?
Clearly, Terra Nullius has never been part of Australian law. Certainly, it was part of Australian practice, but that is another matter. In law, terra nullius was never recognised, at least in relation to pastoral leases. But, thanks to useless legal advisers over the past fifteen years, Aboriginal groups have given away the rights embedded in the quote above and settled for less.
All this notwithstanding, close to a quarter of all Australian land is now Aboriginal land again. Not the best land, from either an Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal point of view, but all the same a sizeable chunk of land. Now for the rest: anybody want to give back what they own ? Or pay rent for what they don’t want to give back ?
To get back to this topic, yes, the vast majority of Aboriginal people now live in cities and towns. There are more Aboriginal people in Sydney than in the Red Centre. Twenty two thousand have graduated from universities, and another fifty five thousand are either students currently or have been students at one time or another. That’s nearly eighty thousand thousand, out of an adult population of around three hundred thousand, who have been (or are at0 university. More to the point, for comparison, the number of Aboriginal people turning eighteen since 1990 is about one hundred and five thousand, while the number of Aboriginal people who have commenced studies at universities in that time is just over fifty five thousand. The equivalent of just over half of all of the eighteen-year-old age-groups since 1990. Age-group numbers (of tertiary age) are rising rapidly. Enrolments are set to rise rapidly., Graduations are set to rise rapidly. Fifty thousand graduates by 2020 is on the cards.
Since World War II, the Aboriginal population has differentiated itself sharply along classlines: there are now, in addition to an underclass of welfare-oriented dependents, a working class, a middle class and a very small upper class. These other groupings have a very different philosophy from the welfare-embedded population: a work ethic rather than a Cargo ethic, and are far more likely to be intermarrying with non-Aboriginal school- and work-mates.
What is striking about these working populations is that their health profile is far more like that of non-Aboriginal people: yes, they may have copped it just as much as their non-working relations, but they have got on with life and made the best of poor opportunities, and are making sure that their children get the best advantages and go on to the highest education level they can.
The welfare-embedded population is still dead in the water, and uninclined to move away from Cargo expectations. They still make up probably most of the Aboriginal population, so the tasks ahead of them, and everybody else who tries to assist them, are enormous. Many are going to fall by the wayside, as they are now, but the working population has shown the way.
Fair go Ruth.
Where is the Goverment supposed to start, or do you think that all assistance should just be paid into community bank accounts as it used to be. That didn’t work too well.
Surely the beginning would need to be where there is the most need, and appears to have the most obscene child abuse. The Aboriginals who live in towns and cities may need assistance too but, they have access to more welfare outlets, discount shopping, schools, transport etc etc than any of their kin living in remote communities.
Town and city living compared to remote or closed communities, means that abuse of most types is more visible and more likely to be reported.
While I appreciate the emotion surrounding removal of abused children, what is your suggestion for protecting an abused child. Leave it in the same environment and then palm off responsibilty by saying that you didn’t want to create another stolen generation? I don’t care what colour you are, if the child is being physically or sexually abused then they have to be removed from that environment, until the purpetrators are not likely to repeat the abuse.
Why should babies have to be screwed just because everyone is afraid of stepping on cultural toes. From most reports the culture has now moved to alcohol and drugs anyway, so where is the problem of stepping on those toes.
A more positive response could be to have centres set up in remote areas that employed responsible Aboriginals to care for these "stolen" children, so that they are still in their local area and receiving genuine care possibly from people they might already know.
Try to get positive thoughts happening instead of piling more negatives on top of an already negative situation. It is fair to say that the Gov will probably not get everything right to begin with, but surely this is preferable than doing nothing and leaving the status quo as it is.
Right on, Jules. The more out of sight, the more abuse and violence. This is not to say that there is none in the outer suburbs, just that it is more likely to be reported in towns and cities, and clamped down on. Not sure about your proposal for employing ‘responsible’ people to care for children under threat: these people would probably come under constant harassment, especially from relations. And the kids involved have to go to school and otherwise leave their sanctuary, so they will be often exposed to those dangers. Would we leave non-Aboriginal kids in the same environment, i.e. the same town, if they had been abused or were threatened by abuse ? Well, I guess we would expect the law to come down heavy on the abusers for a start, wouldn’t we ?!? Certainly to remove abusers from the same ‘community’ ? Of course, the tactic to incarcerate abusers and violent criminals may depopulate some remote settlements, but at least that would give the women and kids, and the handful of decent blokes, a breathing space.
Responses to such a proposal should force the issue: what are the most urgent issues in northern Aboriginal settlements ? Whether or not their money is forcibly distributed, half for essentials, half for non-essentials ? Whether leases should be granted, and whether for 99, 40 or 25, etc. years ? Or to stop the child abuse, domestic violence, and constant production of brain-damaged children ?
From our armchairs, or through our loud-hailers, we all need to think about what might be the best ways to resolve some extremely difficult problems, not least of which is the fact that the people most involved may often object to anything being done at all, that in fact many of the people, much of the ‘communities’ involved, are not necessarily part of the solution, but very much part of the problem. After all, Aboriginal settlements have had councils, organisations and funding coming out of their ears for thirty five years now, and what has any of it achieved ?
Don’t get me started on Aboriginal organisations, except to say this: I take my car to the local garage about every three months for a tune-up and service. They do a good job and I’m happy. If I took my car to the same garage for thirty five years, and they did absolutely nothing to it, would I be a mug to give them the $ 200 each time ? How much have Aboriginal health organisations improved Aboriginal health in thirty five years ? Or the system of Education Workers in the public school system - how come the private school system gets so much better results with Aboriginal kids WITHOUT a system of Education Workers ? [In fact, why do public schools without AIEWs get better results than schools with them ?] What might be the consequences of the government(s) stopping funding on Monday for the thousands of Aboriginal organisations - apart, of course, from the sudden unemployment of tens of thousands of employees ? The entire corrupt billion-dollar patronage system would collapse: that would ‘radicalise’ those organisations even more, every megaphone and loud-hailer would be out in the streets in a matter of hours. But where were those people when Nanette Rogers was revealing the truth about ‘community’ life ?
Yes, wankers come in all colours, shapes, sizes, and genders.
A couple of clear points of fact: if words are written into the constitution of a legislative democracy, then the meaning of those words is a part of that constitution.
You can’t just say that there was no defiling of our race by naming this land Terra Nullius, only because you don’t want us to believe that was done to us.
It is not specifically the remote Aboriginal communities where child abuse and neglect has been happening.
Many Aboriginal persons still today "go bush" to get off the grog, and in that are enabled to better protect their children while living in more remote places, where alcohol and ganga are harder to access. However I will neither say that every remote community is more likely to be safer than every town community.
The point is, that those Aboriginal communities in which the sanctity of childhood is being preserved and upheld, can, and do, disguise themselves so as that no attention is drawn to them, so that nobody knows which communities they are.
The sad and sorry state of affairs across Australia, in many Aboriginal and poorer non-Aboriginal contexts, is that those whom best protect their children, have found it dangerous to promote the fact of how well protected their children are. For some reason, to promote the fact that your own children are well protected, (especially if you are indigenous), seems to attract very abusive negative attention from the sections of the Australian community whom want to try to prove that only by being an Aborigine, we are somehow all suffering terribly during childhood.
Wake up to yourselves!
Word Sword Sworn
At Hath
That Hat
Inshallah no poetry farce
By Solomon’s Seal will my past
No word not true can last
Well, Becky, in forty five years of knocking around Aboriginal affairs, I’ve come across some bullshit, but not much to match what you write. I don’t know what planet you are on but it certainly isn’t Planet Reality.
No, Terra Nullius has never been law, anywhere in Australia.
No, there isn’t some ‘secret tribe’ living in some out-of-sight valley or remote area, all practising their traditions without any whites knowing about it, and no there are probably no groups in remote places carefully nurturing their children and striving to make sure that white people do not know about it.
Please come back to Earth, down from Planet Wishful Thinking, and realise what a ghastly situation people are actually in: only that way can we all begin to admit reality and think of ways to put our shoulders to the wheel. There is so much work to be done, so much damage to undo.
Joe