It’s Time The Territories Got State Rights – An Issue For The Gay And Lesbian Community?
The Rudd government is set to follow – again - in the footsteps of John Howard’s ultra conservative government. Rudd and his administration are considering, we are told, overturning the recent legalization in the ACT of same gender marriages and rights.
The moral zealots are working overtime in Canberra pushing to see the gay and lesbian same sex union laws buried yet again.
This couldn’t happen if the ACT had the same standing as the Australian States – the responsibility and right to make binding laws on behalf of its citizens. The ACT and the Northern Territory risk a Federal veto on any legislation a majority of parliamentarians may pass. It’s way past time the territories were given the same constitutional standing State governments – and voters – expect and enjoy.
This disparity between territories and states means those living in the ACT and NT do not participate in or receive the same democratic freedoms the rest of Australia takes for granted. This must change. It will take a referendum to do it too. Surely this is a referendum that would command a majority of votes in a majority of states, one Australia would pass. The people in the territories are Australians too, after all.
Gay And Lesbian Rights
Naturally it follows, once the territories are given the same respect – and recognition and autonomy – as the states, we will see laws such as for gay and lesbian marriages in the ACT proclaimed, out of the hands of the moralising minority that somehow manage to populate the federal parliament.
We’d see it taken out of the hands of the conservative crusaders who claim to be christians (none of this newfangled compassion nonsense) shuffling around the corridors of parliament pushing one eyed, “our size fits all”, depraved, dishonest and dissolute doctrines.
I suggest to the gay and lesbian rights movement that to achieve their goals, autonomy for the territories would be the vehicle they need to accelerate their freedoms. This is common ground for their community and the heterosexual majority
This is a broader set of rights. At the end of the day, we all win.
Scott Kane
Warning Graphic Images. Australian Liberal Party’s Nuclear Agenda; dirty politics = radioactive environment
The CPRS legislation is before the Senate and the Liberal/National coalition, with the predictability of a summer bushfire, have heaved out their old files supporting nuclear power.
They are in a bind, with 10 coalition MPs steadfastly and publicly opposed to the carbon pollution reduction scheme. So Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop has dusted off the nuclear power issue and brought it forward with the justification that “19 of the G20 countries already relied on nuclear power…”
One can only assume that if 19 of the G20 countries announced they were going to jump off a cliff into the ocean tomorrow Julia Bishop would don a new bikini (no pun intended) and join in.
We’ve got big problems with carbon based power. The science condemning it is beyond question and the need to act is urgent.
But nuclear?
Consider the images above. These are “survivors” of Chernobyl. These are people. The only difference between them and us is we wear hats with corks to keep away the flies, play cricket and Australian Rules or Rugby and prefer beer to vodka.
I could write paragraphs about the half life of various nuclear isotopes. The centuries upon centuries it takes for them to be rendered inert. But why? The images of the “survivors” of Chernobyl speak louder than words…
Warning Graphic Images Click to Zoom In.
Scott Kane
Hey Hey We’re Racists! Shame Channel 9, Shame Daryl Somers.
Just when our politicians are streaming back from places like India after reassuring their opposite numbers that Australia is not racist and that the violent ingrates who steal phones and iPods are color-blind or at least not choosey, Daryl Somers’ “Hey, Hey” program confirms the Indians’ worst fears.
From London to Washington the international press is giving Australia a beating today. Gee – thanks Daryl!
Guest on the show Harry Connick Jr, rightly pointed out that it would not have gone to air – or would have been pulled – in the United States and managed to extract this apology broadcast at the end of the show:
Well Daryl, it’s a poor, wimpy and disconnected apology – and here’s why.
It’s offensive to our citizens. To indigenous peoples, to ethnic communities, particularly after the scurrilous recent targeting of members of the Sudanese community including severe racially motivated beatings.
This isn’t the 1980’s or 1950’s, Mr Somers. Stick to conversing with hats on broom sticks and pink ostriches – where your major talents appear to lie.
It is disgraceful that you, the producers and channel 9 television are unaware of the devastating consequences of such infantile “entertainment”.
It’s offensive because our Indigenous peoples are still under the thumb of the “Great John Howard Intervention”. Considered doing something “positive” for them instead?
A challenge, Daryl Somers: do a show to highlight the plight of our indigenous people under the intervention. Through comic wit, highlight our pathetic political leaders who introduced and continue to enforce it and the truck loads of “consultants” bleeding it dry without anything being done on the ground for those affected. Restore some of your credibility. Do some good. Strike a blow for humanity, for our indigenous peoples.
I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.
That the amateur “actor” involved in the skit was partially of Indian decent is irrelevant. Commercial television comes with sound and picture – not a genetic indicator with which to divine “ironies”.
There is funny and funny. Maligning people on race, religion, gender, gender alignment or any of the multitude of other damaging “jokes” we’ve heard since the year dot is no longer funny.
The Australian public are better than that.
Shame on you, Daryl and Channel 9!
What message do we want to send to the world in this age of mass global communication? That we are a nation of racist hillbilly hicks?
We can – and must – do better than this.
What’s next?
A revival of the 1947 statement by ALP politician Arthur Augustus Calwell: “Two Wongs don’t make a White?” Because your “humour” is no better, mate.
Don’t think so? There is a reason Pauline Hanson failed to be re-elected. Australians are above xenophobic “jokes”. Channel Nine should be excrutiatingly aware of that irony! Hello 60 Minutes?
Put “Hey, Hey it’s Saturday” back in the archives, seal the door and throw away the key if “nostalgic material” like this is all it can do.
Scott Kane
Uluru Is A Sacred Site – Stop Treating It As A Toilet!
Disrespecting aboriginal culture seems to be a national pastime.
Most Australians know aboriginal people regard the monolith – previously known as Ayers Rock for international readers not familiar with the correct indigenous and official name – as a significant sacred site.
Reports that it is still being used by tourists as a toilet is sickening. This is disgraceful at a number of levels. It is insulting to indigenous Australians. It is disrespectful to a unique landform and to Australia’s geological heritage.
Tourists climb the rock and once at the summit, whip out the dunny roll and take a dump!!
At the tender age of 17, in a school group, I climbed the rock (the day Azaria Chamberlian went missing). We didn’t use it as a toilet though!
That was three decades ago. I know better now. Climbing Uluru is disrespectful and quite dangerous. Just read the plaques that adorn the base of the rock commemorating those who have fallen from the giant.
Andrew Simpson, general manager of the Anangu Waai tour company told Tuesday’s NT News.
“When people climb up the top of the rock there’s no toilet facilities up there.
“They get out of sight … (and) most of them have a toilet roll tucked away.
Let’s end this nonsense. The view from “sunset strip” alone is worth the cost of going. We dont tolerate tourists climbing our cathedrals and civic monuments.
We need to stop people climbing the rock!
Scott Kane
NT Aboriginal Housing – Consultants Make Hay – Australians Pay – Heinous For Indigenous People.
That sickening, disheartening immoral Aboriginal housing scam being perpetrated on Aboriginals and Taxpayers that goes by the acronym of SIHIP simply won’t be righted, will it?
For too long the policy of the Federal and Northern Territory governments has been ‘shoot the messenger’.
Nothing has changed it seems.
Now, the consultant who warned them the aboriginal housing scheme under the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program was seriously off-track has been removed from his position by the NT government.
Isn’t that what consultants are supposed to do?
He warned them the scheme:
It is demonstrably a bad move for consultants to provide fearless advice to the NT government if it upsets the gravy train!
And a gravy train it is too…
Kerry Gearman and Bronwen King were employed as remote audit building managers by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure, later seconded to work with the scheme in charge of public housing in the NT.
They said they were paid $71,000 each and in an interview with a News Corporation paper reported they:
Apparently the couple quit their jobs in disgust at the wastage and mismanagement they witnessed.
Quite right too!
“Rivers of money” are flowing into the NT to address the terrible struggle of indigenous people, but little of that money benefits the misbegotten.
What A Disgraceful Mess
The very people with integrity – as measured by their resignations or dismissals – bear the brunt of the Australian Labor Party’s standard approach of “bring in the consultants for a cash smorgasbord” in running states, territories and this country. What a disgrace.
The Chief Minister should hang his head in shame and retire. And it is only reasonable to call – again – for the federal minister – Jenny Macklin – ultimately responsible for this consultant “love in” to also resign in disgrace. That is what is expected under the Westminster system of government.
Disgusting!
Scott Kane
Abbott, Brough and Macklin know racism and squalor better than UN Rapporteur James Anaya.Really!
If United Nations Special Rapporteur James Anaya did not understand why the “lucky country’s” indigenous people live in third world squalor and poverty he does now. He just needed to listen to the Government and Opposition responses to his August 27 statement on Australia’s treatment of indigenous people (1).
Opposition indigenous affairs spokesman Tony Abbott: “I think this is the kind of nonsense we are used to from these armchair critics.” (2)
Former indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough: “I get very annoyed when I hear people pontificating about human rights when today there will be children sitting out there in abject squalor with diseases they don’t have to have, inadequate education, poor nutrition and poor access to health and we have some nicety about human rights legislation.” (2)
Federal indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin: “… When it comes to human rights, the most important human right is the need to protect the lives of the most vulnerable, particularly children, and for them to have a safe and happy life, and a safe and happy family to grow up in. These are the rights that I think need to be balanced against other human rights.” (2)
The diversionary rhetoric used by Brough and Macklin implies that to criticise the Intervention is to condone the sexual abuse of children and the squalid living conditions of indigenous Australians. It also implies the absurdity that achieving standards of education, health care, employment, housing, police protection, personal safety, opportunity and freedoms taken for granted by other citizens – in other words, indigenous rights – is not possible whilst upholding human rights, as if the two issues were not one and the same!
Implicit in these comments, too, is the notion that Professor Anaya knows nothing, should say nothing unless he can say something nice, and that the UN should keep its nose out of our business … thank you very much!
Actually the professor did say a few nice things. He balanced his criticism with credit where credit is due and his criticism was reasonable, justified and fair.
Speaking of the government’s initiatives, particularly the Northern Territory Emergency Response, he expressed concern that its income management regime, imposition of compulsory leases, and community-wide bans on alcohol consumption and pornography “ … overtly discriminate against aboriginal peoples, infringe their right of self-determination and stigmatize already stigmatized communities.
“… Any such measure must be devised and carried out with due regard of the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination and to be free from racial discrimination and indignity.
“ … Any special measure that infringes on the basic rights of indigenous peoples must be narrowly tailored, proportional, and necessary to achieve the legitimate objectives being pursued. In my view, the Northern Territory Emergency Response is not.
“… As currently configured and carried out, the Emergency Response is incompatible with Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, treaties to which Australia is a party, as well as incompatible with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to which Australia has affirmed its support.”
These are obviously the words of someone who has got a handle on the issues, sticks to the facts and expresses his conclusions in a polite and diplomatic manner. In contrast, Abbott’s and Brough’s insults deserve no further comment, except to say they are reminiscent of John Howard’s jingoism at the height of the “Tampa” disgrace.
Abbott, Brough and Macklin seem to overlook the fact that the “top down” Intervention embodies the same paternalism, racism, discrimination, stigmatisation and lack of respect that has brought indigenous Australians to their present state of despair.
As former WA premier and former federal health minister, Dr Carmen Lawrence, said in the inaugural Dhungalla Kaella Oration in May this year (3)(4): “This is not the first time they’ve been subjected to the will of others, with painful consequences; decisions about their lives have been taken from their hands many times before.
“ … Reinforcing a sense of powerlessness is precisely the opposite of what is needed to generate sustained change” and underlying the uniform constraints placed on welfare is “the racist assumption that ‘all blackfellas are the same’ … stereotypically portrayed as violent, abusive, drunks entirely dependent on welfare.”
Commenting on the style and content of the Intervention, Dr Lawrence said that the conclusion we were invited to draw was that “… Aboriginal people in such communities are so completely debased that there are none among them capable of being partners in addressing the depressing catalogue of disadvantage; only outsiders could properly diagnose the problems and devise the solutions.
“Apart from the sharp insult, what message does it send parents who are providing good care for their children when they are placed on the same quarantining regime as those who abuse and neglect their children? This is the antithesis of making people responsible for their lives; it reduces their ability to take control.
“The task is to dismantle institutionalised racism and discrimination in Australian public policy and to reduce racial bias amongst service providers and policy makers – not to mention politicians and the media.”
It seems Professor Anaya and Dr Lawrence are on the same page. Abbott, Brough and Macklin might have the best of intentions, but sadly they are reading from a book that is long out of print.
(1) http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/313713727C084992C125761F00443D60?opendocument
(2) http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/macklin-libs-defend-nt-intervention-20090828-f1j9.html
4) http://www.vic.democrats.org.au/PrejudiceOfGoodPeople.pdf
