More Sorry Suggestions

[HappyHammer]

A couple of quotes in the SMH

Mr Rudd set his Government the following tasks: to provide every indigenous four-year-old in a remote community with early childhood education within five years; to halve the gap between white and black Australia in literacy, numeracy and literacy within a decade; to halve the infant mortality rates within a generation; and close the life expectancy gap.
"None of this will be easy, most of it will be hard, very hard," he said. "But none of it is impossible." Referring to the joint approach with Dr Nelson, Mr Rudd said: "It's not sentiment that makes history, it's actions. The nation is calling on us, the politicians, to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point-scoring and our mindlessly partisan politics and elevate at least this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide.

Dr Bill Glasson, the medical leader of the Northern Territory intervention, said the targets were "absolutely possible". But there was a need to combat violence and alcohol abuse and improve schooling, housing, sanitation and fresh food supply.

Well we have a plan and some targets. I think the co-chairmen idea of the "war-room" is a good idea. Not sure about War-room bit though....

Some indigenous leaders said the issue would not go away. "It's not important today, but it will still be on the agenda," Lowitja O'Donoghue said. She said there should be a statutory authority set up to deal with compensation claims.
The man dubbed the father of reconciliation, Pat Dodson, also supported compensation, but said he would prefer to concentrate on the "reservoir of goodwill" created by the Government's apology.
"Don't be disappointed if you don't get all the things you wanted on the one day," said Mr Dodson, the former chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. "Any group of people who have been treated badly under laws made legitimately by the crown deserve to pursue compensation judicially, legally or politically and they deserve our support."

So compensation claims are on the way. My opinion on these claims has shifted to allow them for those directly affected but for no general payments to be made unless put into a fund to assist with other issues in the community which would be a nice gesture form those affected by the stolen generation....

HH.

[HappyHammer]

The Pom's response

Maybe we should consider removing their smudge from our flag and replacing it with something relevant.

A good opportunity for Geoffrey to get some free press I reckon. He knows that if the poms put there hands up to this then over 2 billion former citizens of the empire will be lodging claims for compensation which is why it won't happen.

HH.

[Wood Borer]

They'd have to say sorry to the 10000 stolen English children sent to Australia after WWII as well.......

Or say sorry to those they left behind.

[pharmaboy2]

I would love to know the full history of our country, warts and all. A truthful, researched and documented history that is not written through rose coloured glasses as it has been up to this date.

cheers

dazzler

the problem with a "truthful, researched and documented history" is that the inclusion of "documented" thus excludes the version that doesnt have a written history, so all of that side is "oral"! The other side of course, includes all "oral" on the same strength as written, and thus for any one event there are 2 often entirely different versions. The history debate is extremely polarised on the use of oral information versus documentation and thus the neutral view is a utopia that doesnt exist, because of the bias of method.

You are either a "black armband" viewer of history, ala reynolds/Clark, OR a European documented historian, ala Blainey/ Windschuttle - there is no in between version.

[HappyHammer]

http://www.sydneyline.com/National%2...20Conflict.htm

I think there is some fibs on both sides.

An interesting read. It would be good to get someone independent of the techniques and the history itself to deliver some kind of mythbusters report.

HH.

[MICKYG]

It will be quite a lot of years yet before Utopia is delivered to the Aboriginal communities, and I do not think Kevs Goverment has the answers to these age old problems. There have been billions of dollars thrown at this problem and it is no closer to being sorted. This will be something with opinions of difference being debated very comfortably for the next 50 Years.

Regards Mike.

[madrat]

This thread sucks.
and i'll say no more to all you pathetic sods regarding your trivial little whinges
I am disgusted

Astrid

I'm with you Dazzler!

...and to Astrid, i think you need to say sorry for your reference, 'pathetic sods'. Everyone's entitled to their opinion.

We are still in Australia aren't we? Freedom of speech and all??

[madrat]

Show me where we legally have freedom of speech??

Point taken Gra.
You know, thinking about it, we don't really have freedom of speech nowadays do we?
Everything has to be 'politically correct' or else it's seen as racism or harrassment.
I admit my anti sorry is most probably for all the wrong reasons.
I have worked in an industry for the last 20years where I see the Aboriginals decline job offers due to 'walkabout' and still receive their dole cheques. I also saw cases of a non-aboriginals unable to attend job interviews for 'ligit' reasons and they battled to get their Unemp benefits back!
I was assaulted by an Aboriginal and had to fight my case. No 'sorry' was given to me for that.
Pretty much got nothing to do with the 'apparent reason' for the apology, but just wanted to say that my opinion was based on personal experience and admittedly am too stubborn and bitter to change it for whatever reason.
Shame really, i never had a bad word to say against them until they directly affected me in a negative way.
"shallow" I hear you all say?
I can sleep at night!

[silentC]

The way you're supposed to look at events like those is to blame the individual, not the whole race. Unfortunately, there's a bit of a repeating pattern there that's difficult to ignore.

Regarding employment, jobs frequently appear in the local paper where indigenous ancestry is a requirement. "Aboriginality is registered as a legitimate job criteria under the anti-discrimination act 1996". I always thought that was a bit ironic.

[Zed]

ok flame me but :

Until the aboriginal communities decide to :

1) STOP drinking and taking drugs
2) get jobs and spend the money they've earned wisely
3) not abuse eachother or thier kids
4) grow up and join the 21st century instead of lamenting a lost culture (which they can hold on to by the way - just like other cultures arund the world have done...)
5) use the pillars in there communities as role models rather than call 'em "lucky" (Goolagong, Meninga, Mundine etc etc...)
6) consider leaving thier ancestral homelands (like billions!!! of people elsewhere have done) to get ahead and a headstart
7) stop blaming past injustices for thier present plight

then they will always remain the same. Who said "if you always do the same thing the same way you should always expect the same result!" ??? how true is that. Ok they had a rough trot. suck it up and GET ON WITH IT!!! yeah ?

I wish my oldies had more than a $10 boat ride and 3 suitcases when we came to this country.... Sorry, but.... handouts should stop. stand on your own feet.. please!

[Wood Borer]

Geez Zed, you have just wiped out the Western World.

Perhaps we could have different ideas about what the sorry was for. Perhaps some people feel the sorry is for saving kids who were at risk from their parents.

I suggested in an earlier post that I saw the "sorry" as an apology for previous governments (mainly British but also Australian) for having policies to deliberately wipe out the Aboriginal culture and possibly the entire race by attempting to break the link between generations under the guise of protecting kids. I see the reason for this as purely economical greed.

Nothing to do with some contempory Aboriginals hitting the bottle, nothing to do with squandering money, nothing to with child abuse, nothing to do with you being beaten up by some drunken Aboriginal yobbo etc.

To not say sorry for those apalling policies for the reasons above is like not believing the holocaust was a terrible thing because a Jew short changed you last week.

[Zed]

you got me wrong WB, My post had nothing to do with being sorry about anything, coz I aint. My ansectors didnt steal babies... and neither did I. One of my uncles was on the losing side of WW2; He aint sorry tho - he died in the conflict.... mind u the recruitment policies of the time were sorta like the stolen genreations in some ways; "come with me now... put on this uniform. now. do As I say. now."

My comment in the above post was meant to be a statement of observation wrt to the current plight of indigenious communities in Oz... not about how good or bad individuals are or a backahnd sorry from an elected official.

[silentC]

I suggested in an earlier post that I saw the "sorry" as an apology for previous governments (mainly British but also Australian) for having policies to deliberately wipe out the Aboriginal culture and possibly the entire race by attempting to break the link between generations under the guise of protecting kids. I see the reason for this as purely economical greed.

Trouble is, there isn't universal agreement that those policies actually existed in that form. There is ongoing debate concerning the findings of the Bringing Them Home report and as far as a lot of academics are concerned, it is far from a given that those policies existed.

Now I'm not saying that these things didn't happen the way they have been presented, because I don't know. All I'm saying is that the case is not as clear cut as some would have us believe.

Again I highlight the missionary workers who looked after these kids. How would you feel if you had spent your working life helping people like that, only to have your government turn around and apologise for your efforts?

[astrid]

Well. whats done is done, a sincere and heartfelt apology has been made from one Australian parlement, for the wrong doing of another.
As you guys seem to demand, get over it and move on.

Astrid

[Wood Borer]

Or, how would I feel if I was one of the caring missionaries who discovered that I had been hoodwinked into doing the governments dirty work under the guise of caring for the dear little children.

I have no hatred of the missionaries however I have reservations about the intentions of the people who organised the missionaries.

I have been desperately looking for a book that made reference to the Poms sending out Scientists to prove that the Tasmanian Aborigines were destined for extinction anyway so wiping them out now merely accelerated nature's way.