Jenny Mak Should Get The Sack! Australia’s Disgrace – Indigenous Intervention Failure.
Minister For Disingenuous Affairs
Click The Picture Directly Above.
It’s captured from Hon. Jenny Maklin’s website home page and makes Maka’s view of who “Australians” are very clear.
Yes, this is the federal “Minister for Indigenous Affairs”. One would be forgiven for concluding Maka sees the people her portfolio is actually responsible for are “Anglo-Celtic white”, given the singular lack of ethnic diversity amongst the smiling faces basking in her reflected glory. There’s not a single indigenous person there!
Her portfolio needs to be renamed to better reflect the Minister’s priorities. I envisage: “Minister For Disingenuous Affairs.”
Out of Touch. Out of Time. Out of Basic Decency.
Northern Territory indigenous leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu says the Federal Government’s intervention has failed to improve the lives of Aboriginal people.
Yunupingu said:
“It is now three years old but it hasn’t made Aboriginal people any richer or healthier or happier,”
“It is really and truly dragging people down to create more misery.
“So the intervention that I am calling now is to close. Let’s start again.”
He’s right, of course. Are we surprised?
There can’t be a person in either chamber of the Australian Federal Parliament who actually cares.
Because if they did we’d hear about it!
Instead, all we’ve heard are Conservatives in the Northern Territory using the issue for political point scoring.
We’ve not heard from The Greens. Their silence speaks volumes about their “acknowledgement of the original carers”, which equates to:
“Move over, The Greens are here!
These are Australian Citizens – not vehicles for cutesy, convenient, middle class vote scoring. Not devices for creating surreptitious slogans addressing voguish city dwellers.
Either do something constructive to help them NOW or…
Get out of parliament in favor of people who will!
Millions Squandered By Bureaucrats
We have heard reports from NT that millions in indigenous funding earmarked for the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program has been squandered in typical, heartless, bureaucratic bastardism.
Speaking of bastards – NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson vowed he’d:
“…get to the bottom” of how the $672m package was being spent.”
and the NT’s conservative opposition Country Liberal Party called for the Northern Territory and Commonwealth auditors-general to begin
“… an immediate investigation to trace the movement of money under the SIHIP scheme.“
The guidelines for this “funding” are an utter disgrace. They are a sick, perverted joke on the Aboriginal people. Australians should be screaming in rage – this could never happen in the suburbs:
- 40-year lease deals have been negotiated with remote communities, which receive their chunk of the money only after they have signed over partial control over their land.
- Seven lease deals have been struck, despite chronic overcrowding in most remote communities – where it is alleged up to 30 people have been known to share a two-bedroom house.
- Not one new house has been built as part of the project.
Thanks to this Minister and her Labor government, John Howard’s Northern Territory indigenous gulag continues – further eroding basic civil rights, basic economic support and the basic civil liberties that are the birth right of all Australians.
Which under the constitution, includes the Australian Aboriginal people!
“ Minister,Resign.”
“The Westminster System Affords You An Honourable Way Out!”
She Looks Worried. Doesn’t She? So She Should. Sack The Mak!
Conservative Engendered Racism.
Endorsed By Labor Party White Australia Policies?
I remind you this tragedy was created by John Howard’s Liberal/National Coalition government prior to the ALP winning power and appointing “Maka the Minister For Disingenuous Affairs” . It was supposed to address genuine problems such as child abuse and chronic health problems in the indigenous community.
Australian Democrats Senators Said This Would Fail in 2007
The Australian Democrats Senators argued vigorously against it’s implementation. They warned it would fail.
They were right, and it did.
The Green’s Sacrificing This Issue For Ecological Communion
The cross benches in the Senate are now filled by The Greens, who are mute on this issue. They are too busy arguing about Climate Change and opposing every government proposal on everything.
Balance – oh plagiarising populists that you are – is about all issues of governance. Not just your pet – green coloured glasses – agenda item!
But Aboriginal Affairs?
They “acknowledge” them – but we all know what that’s worth!
Liberal And Labor Party Apartheid
This is a bum deal for all Australians. Taxpayers’ money is being wasted by bureaucrats – and is not getting through to those it is intended for and who urgently need it, Australia’s indigenous people.
It is a bum deal because we Australians are inclined to sit in judgment of other nations’ human rights issues while our government makes hypocrites of us all.
It is a bum deal because the Rudd Government have not even succeeded in conning themselves.
This government and Jenny Maklin have successfully managed, in just two short years, to create a problem that would bring tears of joy to the eyes of Australia’s second longest serving deflector of human rights – John Howard.
The Australian Democrats have long sought to “Keep the Bastards Honest” – but it seems we are now reduced to having to “Keep the Bastards from being Xenophobes” too?
“Please Explain?”
Scott Kane
Bob Hawke paid? Australia to be new home of world’s radioactive waste? We’re receiving a dump.
Bob Hawke Wants Us To Turn Australia Into Nuclear Sewer
A former Australian Prime Minister is lining up our beloved country for a sucker punch – to be the dump for the world’s radioactive waste.
Bob Hawke makes me so angry. And he is bringing my prediction , made in great sadness, into reality.
The world has a serious problem – there is radioactive waste stored precariously in unsafe conditions around the globe. Scientists have warned governments they must act; populations are anxious. A resolution is urgently needed.
Australia is ideal as a deep geologic radioactive repository: it is roomy, dry, geologically stable and politically benign. We understand the need for great caution in managing and disposing of depleted uranium. We are honest too, so whatever facility is built will be to agreed specifications. Perfect.
News Corp today quotes Bob Hawke saying: “It would also become a strong source of national income for Australia that could be dedicated to our own environmental and water requirements.”
Really?
This is a key problem: dumping countries will not pay Australia properly for the right to free themselves of this dirty, poisonous, dangerous stuff.
Yes, they will pay billions for their get-out-of-jail-free card. But it wont be enough, not nearly enough.
Australia will commit itself to guarding, containing and protecting the waste for – choose a number – say 1000 years (a gross underestimate). Other countries will willingly pay for the engineering and construction and transport, but not for 1000 year security – that wont be their problem!
This waste dump will be a magnet for crime. Anyone with large volumes of radioactive material can hold the entire world to ransom.
Costing Trillions Of Aussie Dollars
One could do an actuarial estimate of what 1000 year security would cost Australia. It would be trillions. The dumping countries will want to erase this liability by negotiating it away.
I can see them all in a row, gesturing energetically, looking for a bargain and demanding a discount.
A Millennia is a very long time. Given the quality of our political leadership, the giant capital injection we would enjoy would be frittered, inflated and mismanaged away in a generation or two.
Do we really want this responsibility?
Congratulations Geosciences Victoria and Paul McDonald – there is $70 billion in Gold right under our feet.
Victoria was founded on gold. And it looks like we are to have another Rush!
In news reported today, Geosciences Victoria has been researching with new science* and found 80 million ounces of gold in the area Swan Hill – Hamilton – Shepparton. The ten largest fields are each expected to contain more than a million ounces each. Wow!
What does this mean for Victoria? A lot.
Victorian Premiers have for decades watched mineral riches underwrite other state governments – particularly WA and QLD – and, save the now-depleted Bass Strait oilfields, saw little activity here.
For government, it means royalties, taxes and robust economic activity.
For citizens, it means lower taxes, jobs and a more vibrant society. Before you shrug at this, consider the impact of a mere $900 given to each taxpayer earlier this year.
But we need to be careful: beware the Dutch Disease. Holland’s traditional industries were made uncompetitive by large gas discoveries that lifted their currency.
I recommend against going back on the gold standard – where every Australian dollar is redeemable in gold – although we probably now could.
Groan, and Western Victoria will now be covered in white miners’ pegs.
These are the not-so-hard problems of affluence. Congratulations to Paul McDonald, Resources Manager at Geosciences Victoria and to all my fellow Victorians.
* for the technically minded: http://www.theajmonline.com.au/mining_news/news/2009/may-27th-09/other-top-stories/victoria2019s-billion-dollar-hidden-gold
Scullion – Aboriginal Housing Is Scandalous But Conservatives Criticizing The NT Government For It Is A Scam!
You can always rely on the conservatives to crow about their opponents’ failures, but they rarely look in the mirror to check their own guilty faces.
Rather than do anything positive for Australia’s original inhabitants, in the eleven years the conservatives presided, they instead worked out all new ways to humiliate, subjugate and alienate a proud people who had the grit to simply ask for help in addressing a real problem they faced in their communities.
…and the conservatives still failed to have a viable Aboriginal housing policy themselves.
How many Australian’s living in the cities – who live the european lifestyle and culture – would tolerate the use of troops and “Special Restricted Areas?”
How many would tolerate sub standard – non existent – health, housing and education?
How many would tolerate being told what, where and when they can undertake an otherwise perfectly legal activity?
How long would any government, regardless of political flavour, last if the Howard Government’s “Final Solution” was applied to us?
The public would be outraged – and rightly so.
It is scandalous that Scullion is using this issue for political gain – personal and partisan vote harvesting - when he was largely mute while Howard and his merry band of racially divisive ‘Ministers of the Crown’ perpetrated yet another negligent duplicity on Australia’s aboriginal people.
What are we supposed to conclude, other than “Viva the lack of any difference?”
“The Rudd Government have been caught because there are some clear deliverables,” he said.
Senator – you’ve been caught too. You’ve been caught doing absolutely nothing for the aboriginal people and using them as a convenient weapon for political gain – when it suits you!
Sure, Labor should hang it’s head in shame – notably federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, the Member for Jagajaga – who was warned more than a year ago that a $672 million Indigenous housing policy had major problems. But so too the conservatives, whose only policy was to further erode the rights of aboriginal people – rights all Australians are guaranteed. Labor has not lifted a finger to remove this Great Australian Shame.
Political Lip Service – But No Positive Outcomes
It’s only fair that while we are blasting both conservatives and Labor – a divide that continues to shrink – that The Greens take some heat too. When they are not protecting trees they are equally mute. It’s not good enough that they open every public speech by “…acknowledging the original caretakers of the land…” and then utterly ignore them.
That is lip service.
And it is a scam!
During the 2007 Federal election campaign, an aboriginal lady in Seymour approached me to express her surprise and delight at my speech in a public debate.
She heard, she learned, the Australian Democrats were the only ones to speak on aboriginal issues at all.
- Labor never mentioned them, being more interested in arguing with shire councillors – present for the benefit of TV cameras.
- Fran Bailey of the Liberal’s didn’t seem to recall – or care – whether they existed.
- The Greens were too busy blaming humanity in general for all things environmentally bad. The Greens “acknowledged” Aboriginal people in their trendy opening sentence like the environmental yuppies they are. But after that? Nothing. Nix. Nada.
They are more preoccupied with having their invariable, obstructive ‘No’ vote counted separately in Hansard – or calling for military intervention in other countries (on the parliamentary record, Senator Bob Brown!). I can see nothing from The Greens for the aboriginal people since they took to the cross benches in the Senate.
They’re loud and toxic when it comes to opposing fuel reduction to avoid firestorms. Abusive even. But when it comes to human suffering they are as cold as ice.
They even reject as not credible the traditional aboriginal practice of forest fuel reduction.
“Acknowledge?”
When?
It is past time for our abuse of this proud race to cease. It is beyond “late”; it is beyond “urgent”.
The Liberal/National Party coalition, Labor and The Greens are driving this sham. It is time it ended.
The real “restrictions” should be on the addiction Australian Governments have for denying our aboriginals basic human rights, liberties, freedom and health care.
Voters – it is time to get angry and replace them with genuine alternatives – alternatives that do care and do not just pay lip service to a long overdue resolution of this economic and social divide.
Scott Kane
February 2009 Victorian Bushfire – Latte Environmentalism – Why Labor, Liberal And The Australian Greens Aren’t Thinking And Won’t Talk
Popularity is the life blood of any political party. Logically, without supporters you cant get elected. For the machines of most political parties this is the paramount consideration. Sadly this is exactly why unpopular realities are usually ignored. If acted upon, it is in a way opposite to the principles of decency, safety and logic.
One could argue the Brumby Labor government is acting in direct response to the horror we all witnessed on February 7th 2009, Black Saturday.
Giving A Disaster A Cool Name And A Royal Commission Isn’t First Aid
We are quick to stick a brand name on sorry events. It makes it easy for the media to discuss it; it looks sharp. It’s easy to erect a Royal Commission to palliate community horror and indeed outrage.
But a bandaid is not going to resolve the issues that led to this fire. No, I dont mean the drought or climate change. I refer to something entirely in our hands: sensible forest management and fuel reduction.
Two conflicting intents paralyse our emergency services and government departments in relation to the whole forestry management and fuel reduction issue. As a society of decent, humane people we have a serious obligation to think the matter through and decide. Let me be clear – without either a genuine fuel reduction program or the complete evacuation of all civilians from the fire-prone areas, more innocent people will die in the next fire season.
We got to this point by pandering to simple-minded green politics for the sake of votes.
Note: at no time am I referring to the brave volunteers on the ground or the men and women of our police, fire and ambulance services who were left to clean this mess up.
Latte Green Politics Is The Core Of The Issue
Many political decisions are targeted, nay designed, to woo inner suburban greens who love the environment, even if they dont know what it means.
It’s easy, it’s attractive and it feels good. If feels like you’re making a difference – and yes, in that they are right. They are. What these well intentioned and passionate people fail to grasp is that the brand of politics they subscribe is a life-threatening danger to the people living in the bush. I live in the Federal seat of McEwen – the seat containing the communities most heavily devastated by the 2009 bushfires -and I know the people don’t want mass clearing of forest or bush.
They love it!
They live in an area they cherish and seek to protect it. But they don’t want to die in it, just because a misinformed green in the inner suburbs believes clearing of fuel is bad, that burning the bush is intolerable environmental vandalism and that “Black Saturday was a one off event”. These contentions are being actively circulated by the green movement.
It wasn’t. It will happen again. On average there’s a bad burn every ten years. Each time the loss of life and property has increased. Yet we do even less fuel reduction now than when I was a boy forty years ago.
Labor, Liberal And Green Votes – Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire
Let’s talk perfectly plain here. Environmental concern is a good thing. The Australian Democrats have actively pursued best environmental practice for 30 years. This isn’t about environmental concern or environmental activism. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact I ran an entire electoral campaign on the issue of Climate Change in 2007.
What is wrong is government, specifically, political parties pandering to the latte environmentalists purely to garner votes and look impressive and concerned.
It’s wrong and yet it works – and that is gravely concerning.
In a forthcoming article, I’m going to address issues of science and previous debate and inquires.. That is, the evidence we had before February 7th 2009 aka Black Saturday. It was predicted by credible scientists holding hard, scientific, verifiable data. They were ignored.
Today, I am contending that the problem lies with Labor and Liberals desperately seeking to win votes that would otherwise go to minor parties or independents. That problem and The Greens, specifically their supporters, are doing the Australian community great harm campaigning – particularly at local government level – with rhetoric based on pseudo science, emotionalism and the cult of the glowing ember.
Can’t See The Wood For The Greens
The labor government has had ten years to address the problems that led to Black Saturday. Before them the Liberals had their chance. The Victorian state government has had 70 years to do so!
Consider the commissions, coronial inquests and public submissions to both since 1939. We have the answers yet they’ve not been acted on in an overwhelming number of instances. It hasn’t always been due to the influence of green politics, to be sure. But that does not detract from the fact that there has been no action at all.
I remember – like it was yesterday – being caught in the 1969 bushfires. I lost a fire fighter school friend in the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires and I’ve mentioned here previously that my sister, family and friends lost their homes and in many cases their lives on Black Saturday 2009. So many lost so much, and the reason is simple. We live in the area the green movement of the inner suburbs likes to poke holes in the air about. We live here and, as was the case in February 2009, we die here.
We had commissions and inquiries after all these calamaties. Yet after the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires there was less, not more fuel reduction taking place.
How could that be?
The rise of Green politics. After the 60′s and 70′s environmental movement had passed and – it needs to be said, with some very positive outcomes – there was a brief pause in the early 1980′s. Enormous energy was devoted opposing the nuclear fuel cycle – rightly – and I applaud that work even now. It was the Australian Democrats, in the Senate, who led the charge against the damming of the Franklin River – not Bob Brown and The Greens despite their desperate and recent efforts to rewrite history to look like they’ve actually done something, anything!
I supported those real environmental actions.
But the need for fuel reduction is a real concern. It isn’t based on flimsy theories that trees enjoy being barbequed every ten years by a firestorm. Sure, Australian native trees germinate widely after a bushfire. But a firestorm is not the same thing as a bushfire.
When greens point with orgasmic enthusiasm at a series of green sprouts covering the trunks of recently burned trees, they are pointing to an desperate illusion in many cases. Much of this “green regrowth” is a last ditch stand of the tree to hang on to life - soon be extinguished as the tree rots out from the inside.
And that breathless naivity makes me ill.
Yet, this is exactly the kind of material we see published by the green movement. This and a whole swag more. Sure, not all the trees will die. Some of them will in fact go on to live, but many with this symptom won’t.
How do we know? The scarring on the hills of Lorne or Warburton after Ash Wednesday is how. Visible ten years after the fire had passed. Dead, lifeless trees. In other words – past forestry experience. It takes decades to recover from a firestorm, and if not carefully managed leaves the door wide open for invasive and undesirable species to take over.
A little bit like the Senate now the Democrats are absent.
This disinformation is swallowed whole by latte drinking greens. This is why labor and sadly the conservatives will not, can not, address this issue – they are desperate to hold the support of these “believers”.
Victorians Have To Decide. Either We Fix This Now Or We Stop People Living There.
The equation is a simple one at the end of the day. We either fix this issue by listening to bushfire scientists or we tell people they can’t live in bush-fire prone areas. It’s a simple decision but it’s painful. If we attend to proper, science based fuel reduction management then all political parties advocating it face a voter backlash from the latte sipping types we’ve discussed.
On the other hand there is going to be hell to pay if we are going to tell the people, such as those of McEwen, to pack their bags and leave their homes and lives.
The remaining option is no option at all. That is, to continue to ignore the problem, to pretend all things green are good, and to watch homes and lives burn again.
What would you decide, as a humanitarian, if it were up to you?
Scott Kane
Will we use the low interest rate window to knock down private debt or return lemming-like to the financial orgy?
Australia struts the world stage, its banks safe, consumption stimulated and exports robust. Well done, Mr Rudd, you followed the IMF script pretty well.
Except, ahem, what about private debt? What about the reality that our banks fund half their assets with restless offshore loans, not from sticky domestic deposits?
The Bank of International Settlements prefers the figures to speak for themselves. And they do. Australians have borrowed heavily to buy shiny cars and large comfortable houses.
Borrowing to buy long life assets is a useful way to achieve one’s goals. But in the end, it is all about balance, a quality we are strikingly short of. Big loans mean heavy repayments – so don’t lose your job, get sick or lift your gaze for a moment from the long and arduous task of forwarding your earnings to the bank.
Today’s low interest rates ease the repayment burden. Those that use this window to beat down their borrowings buy flexibility and freedom – for themselves and their country.
And, yes, the economy will recover, followed by higher interest rates.
While the banks have been ‘stress tested’, citizens have not. What happens if the interest rate on your very large mortgage is ten percent not six? What if it is13 per cent?
“Sir! Sir! I know! Sir! Sir!”
Pain. Thirst. Sacrifice.
The Australian Government does not have a debt problem. But you do and I do.
Graph Source: Bank of International Settlements, 79th Annual Report
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