Friday, May 04, 2007

La Passionara rides again

Well, they did it.
Three of the Aboriginal Members of the Assembly crossed the floor and voted against the Macarthur River Mine legislation.
Barbara McCarthy, in a passionate speech, told the House that it was shameful the legislation was rushed through while the people of Borroloola were still in 'Sorry Business' (extensive mortuary rites following a death, still widely practised by Aboriginal people despite the fact that the deaths come thick and fast these days).
Of course the Yanyuwa and Mara people are the last on Clare Martin's list of people to listen to.
Xstrata, yes.
The mining lobby, yes.
One's own parliamentary colleagues, as long as they don't say anything she doesn't want to hear.
But blackfellas?
Forget it.
The Martin Government prides itself on the fact that it has six Aboriginal members out of a team of 19.
No other Parliament has ever been able to make the same claim and some have no Aboriginal members at all.
But it's not much good when you expect Aboriginal people to help you legitimise actions that are against the interests of particular groups of Aboriginal people, which means you're asking them to collude in their own oppression.
These three have had enough of that, plainly.
But watch out for the spin doctors.
They'll present it that crossing the floor didn't mean they disagreed with the legislation.
It meant they were acting oout of a sense of shame at the offence towards the dead person and those in mourning - of whom Barbara McCarthy is one.
And I'll bare my bum in Smith St if it ain't so.

In other Aboriginal news to hand this hour (isn't that an appalling expression?), Federal Inidgenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough was out bush yesterday signing up the first happy punters to his private home ownership scheme.
The idea is that you get Aboriginal people to embrace privatisation and the joys of capitalism by taking them out of public housing and into the Great Australian Dream.
And how do you do it?
You spend huge - and unspecified - amounts of taxpayers' money building houses out in the bush (this one's 300-odd km from Darwin).
Then you tell the punters they have to pay the rent faithfully for two years.
OK, no drama.
Keep the house and yard clean and tidy.
Hm.
And send their kids to school (which is 40km away in this case) every day.
I kid you not.
If you were trying to get white public housing tenants to buy their own homes, you might insist on the first of these conditions as a prerequisite.
But any reasonable person might find the other conditions grossly intrusive and perhaps a contravention of human rights.
But because these tenants are black and the Government is just trying to help them see the light, it's OK?
Oy vey! That's Australia under John Howard for you.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michael, it's ironic that commenting on an Alaskan teacher's blog has led me here when I'm an Australian teacher with some sense of the issues you embrace here. Thanks for the open postings here that shed light on many issues of importance - your prior post on Alice Springs rang true for me, especially as I had family members living there for a decade whose necks got redder the longer they stayed. I've only been to the red centre once but I ran into an old school colleague of Arrunta heritage there who's a country singer and radio host - to say everyone's from somewhere else is definitely wrong. Thanks for challenging that perception - and I look forward to going back and reading more of your prior posts.

Michael said...

Thanks Graham. I think sometimes that getting a comment on one's blog is akin to a reminder from the Great Spirit that there is still a plave for reasoned dialogue, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
And let me tell you I'm flattered to be mentioned in the same sentence as Doug Noon, whose relentless honesty and insistent inquiry is a model to all bloggers.

Anonymous said...

Doug is absolutely one of the bloggers I respect the most because he always holds his ideas and actions up to the light for review, good or bad. Too many people are only blogging their success and their expertise - I try to be open and wrestle with new ideas but Doug is an absolute role model in that regard. Interesting that when I went to subscribe to your blog one of the other subscribers was Bill Kerr, like myself, another Adelaide based blogger, but like Doug, one to examine things away from the mainstream. I'm really glad that I'm reading here.

Michael said...

I've just had a look at Bill's blog and as a man of 'a certain age' I feel for his current predicament.
It looks to me, though, as if he's read his Dylan Thomas, specifically:
'Do not go gentle unto that good night....but rage, rage against the dying of the light...'
Bless you Bill and make it through that night.
And thanks Graham for pointing me in his direction.

David J said...

Just when I thought no one was interested in the current state of affairs in the NT I visited the McArthur River site
http://mcarthurriver.wordpress.com/
and discovered a bunch of new links, One of them was a link to this post.
Bravo for your comments! Why did the MPs have to cross the floor in the first place? And if so why was it only indigenous members? Surely with such devision the government should have re thought the whole deal! Are our non-indigenous MPs devoid of compassion as well as ethics?
Thanks for publishing your thoughts