Serious side to quirky yarn

Posted by on May 13, 2008, 8:33pm, 233 views,  Leave a comment

The BBC probably thought it was onto a quirky story when they reported “Aussie straps in beer, not child”. Read more

Indigenous or Aboriginal

Posted by on May 3, 2008, 10:58am, 1,962 views,  2 comments

Aboriginal initiationI find myself agreeing with former ATSIC chairwoman Lowitja O’Donoghue who decries the use of the word “indigenous”. Like me, O’Donoghue prefers “Aboriginal”.

“I really can’t tell you of a time when ‘indigenous’ became current, but I personally have an objection to it, and so do many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” she said.

“This has just really crept up on us … like thieves in the night.” Read more

Alternative view on “sorry”

Posted by on February 13, 2008, 5:42pm, 387 views,  2 comments

This email has been doing the rounds. What do readers think?

AUSTRALIAN APOLOGY TO THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION

We apologise for giving you doctors and free medical care, which allows you to survive and multiply so that you can demand apologies.

We apologise for helping you to read and teaching you the English language and thus we opened up to you the entire European civilisation, thought and enterprise.

We feel that we must apologise for building hundreds of homes for you, which you have vandalised and destroyed.

We apologise for giving you law and order which has helped prevent you from slaughtering one another and using the unfortunate for food purposes.

We apologise for developing large farms and properties, which today feed your people, where before, you had the benefits of living off the land and starving during droughts.

We apologise for providing you with warm clothing made of fabric to replace the animal skins you used before.

We apologise for building roads and railway tracks between cities and for making cars so that you no longer have to walk over harsh terrain.

We apologise for paying off your vehicle when you fail to pay the installments.

We apologise for giving you free travel anywhere, whenever.

We apologise for giving each and every member of your family $100 and free travel to attend an Aboriginal funeral.

We apologise for not charging you rent on any lands when white people have to pay.

We apologise for giving you interest free loans.

We apologise for developing oil wells and minerals, including gold and diamonds which you never used and had no idea of their value.

We apologise for developing Ayers Rock and Kakadu, and handing them over to you so that you get all the money.

We apologise for allowing taxpayers’ money paid towards your daughters’ weddings ($8000 each daughter).

We apologise for giving you $1.7 billion per year for your 250,000 people, which is $48,000 per Aboriginal man, woman and child.

We apologise for working hard to pay taxes that finance your welfare, medical care, education, etc to the tune of $1.2 billion each year.

We apologise for you having to approach the Aboriginal Affairs Department to verify the above figures. For the trouble you will have identifying the “Uncle Toms” in your own community who are getting richer and leaving some of you living in squalor and poverty.

We do apologise. We really do. We humbly beg your forgiveness for all the above sins. We are only too happy to take back all the above and return you to the paradise of the “outback”, whenever you are.

Sorry, but I’m not

Posted by on February 9, 2008, 7:25pm, 271 views,  Leave a comment

The new Labor Government will apologise to Aborigines this week for the “stolen generation”. The Liberals, after some angst, will support the apology.

I’m sorry, but I can’t. The reasons why the previous government chose not to apologise have not changed.

Children were taken from their families with good intentions in most cases. Many of them lived better lives than they would have done otherwise.

There is even a strong argument the policy should be modified and restored. Many Aboriginal children are growing up in unnecessary poverty and neglect. Many of these children would be better off with foster families.