The editorial in today’s OZ is so good that I have decided to post the whole section on the Governments response to abuse and neglect in indigenous communities. There is after all no point in re-inventing the wheel.
The rise of rights and responsibilities
- June 26, 2007
The Howard intervention finds a receptive mood to help THAT the Howard Government’s attempt to save a generation of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse can be portrayed as a political wedge shows how far sections of Australia’s so-called thinking elite are out of touch with the rights-and-responsibilities revolution sweeping the Western world. The very notion of seeking political opportunity by exploiting the tragic circumstances exposed by the Northern Territory’s investigation into sexual abuse in indigenous communities is repugnant. The irony is that a political wedge only becomes possible courtesy of the predictable protests of those who continue to favour symbolic gestures over practical intervention.
For critics of the Howard plan, indigenous disadvantage is less a debate about rights and responsibilities than a clamour to wallow in what is portrayed as the superior virtue of the oppressed. Rather than seek a solution to the crisis afflicting remote indigenous communities, some critics would rather use the miserable circumstances of their far-away inhabitants as a stick with which to beat John Howard and the existing order. The most galling thing for them is that the Prime Minister, in seeking an emergency response, has the obvious support of mainstream thinkers. Even worse, mainstream support is not driven by a race-based desire to suppress; it is an expression of the community’s good heart and goodwill towards Australians of Aboriginal descent.
On this issue, critics of the Government show how out of touch they have become with the core beliefs of the ordinary person. Retiring British Prime Minister Tony Blair highlighted the shift in public mood in an article published in the Economist magazine on June 2, in which he reflected on the lessons of his premiership. Mr Blair said the role of the state was changing to one based on a partnership with the citizen based on mutual rights and responsibilities. This extended to the welfare system and law and order where old attitudes based on left- and right-wing views were now redundant.
Ending prejudice was no longer the preserve of only the so-called progressives, just as conservatives were not the only ones who wanted a tougher response to crime. According to Mr Blair, the public now distinguished clearly between personal lifestyle issues, where they were liberal, and crime, where they were definitely not.
Mr Howard’s declaration of a national emergency and intervention in a bid to normalise conditions on remote communities is in keeping with Mr Blair’s realisation. Public support for action is rooted not in a desire to conquer an indigenous lifestyle but to impose a rule of law that protects the rights of vulnerable citizens from criminal acts. Cheap criticism that the Government’s response is a form of apartheid misses the point that alcohol and welfare restrictions are being imposed on the basis of location, not race or ethnicity. In fact, the Howard plan is the very opposite of aparthied – the Afrikaans word for separate development. Instead, it seeks to help indigenous people reconnect with the wider society. And how racist is it to suggest, as one critic has, that indigenous community residents would not adapt to home ownership and individualism because they had not developed agriculture when encountered by Europeans?
As Aboriginal campaigner Noel Pearson said last week, it is the colour of the behaviour, not the colour of the skin, that matters. Mr Howard would no doubt find community support to extend welfare restrictions that direct payments to the needs of children, rather than the drug habits of parents, across the board. It is in keeping with the rights-and-responsibilities agenda, which seeks to protect the vulnerable ahead of a misguided sentimentality that excuses poor behaviour because of cultural or socioeconomic stereotypes.( The Australian)
The abuse of children is a carbuncle on the soul of our remote communities and the time for sweet smelling poultices that cover up this foul canker have well and truly past. A cure requires that the boil be lanced and it seems to me that Howard and Brough have finally garnered the courage to wield the scalpel. Sadly the minions of the left have been caught very much on the back foot by this decisive action and they want to pretend that we have the luxury to engage in endless “consultations” and discussions. The bodies and the souls of the abused children cannot wait any longer for such niceties.
Filed under: Ethical questions, Indigenous Issues, Justice, Law, Leftism, Political Correctness, the Law | Tagged: in the news
Thankyou for publishing the best analysis of this issue that I have seen.
I wasn’t going to bother responding to your attempt to justify the Australian’s propaganda, but I thought it would be useful for me to clear up a few of your more egregious untruths and serial dissembling:
1. Government agencies designed to combat child abuse are a leftist invention. Conservatives historically have opposed such agencies as they are part of ‘big government’ intervention, and intrude upon the sanctity of family life. See for instance traditional conservative views on parents’ ‘right’ to smack children, or Tony Abbott’s recent comments on corporal punishment. In any case, Howard is not actually proposing an increase in child protection resources, or appropriate support services (such as drug and alcohol counselling, abuse and trauma counselling, etc.), preferring instead to dump all of this onto overworked police and medical staff. The Labor state governments are the only ones attempting to address these issues:
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/media/media.nsf/news/4F6464CEA527BB7FC8257302000C56AA?opendocument
2. The actual recommendations from the relevant NT report have not been followed by Howard. The report actually advocated consultation with the communities concerned. Indeed, it is difficult to see how any response can be feasible if the relevant communities are opposed to it. It is extremely difficult to try and compel and Aboriginal community to take measures it doesn’t believe in.
3. Those ‘minions or the left’ within the Labor party asked for Federal assistance on this issue last year, and were ignored:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21967194-661,00.html
4. Despite labelling the situation a ‘national emergency’, Howard hasn’t actually got around to prioritising the use of Federal police who are stationed elsewhere in the world:
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=32381
5. Other than Pearson, few other Aboriginals appear to have been consulted in this matter. Empirical research actually demonstrates that community consultation provides significant benefits:
http://www.missionaustralia.com.au/cm/resources/documents/Pathways_to_Prevent_final.pdf
6. Howard has been unable to explain satisfactorily just why a plan to tackle child abuse and substance abuse requires an attack on Native title rights, or the implementation of 99-year leases.
7. No mention is being made of the tens of thousands of child abuse and neglect cases around the country which involve very similar issues to those facing the aboriginals (deficient housing, poverty, low education, rife levels of substance use, etc). Apparently, race is the only determining factor when it comes to government intervention.
This endeavour, as well-intentioned as it may be, appears to be nothing other than a simplistic, authoritarian knee-jerk response from the right end of politics, and, as nice as Howard’s motiviations may possible be, this intervention is unlikely to achieve its goals for the above reasons.
In light of this, I suggest you employ a minimum or reasearch and reason prior to grandstanding about ‘leftist minions’.
You do love the idea of a conspiracy don’t you Hap? I tell the truth in my blog mate any you claiming otherwise does not change that fact.
Frankly I don’t care who invented the notion of an agency to protect the interests of vulnerable children. In any case the way that I read the situation is that the federal government will be providing whatever resources will be needed to address this pressing problem. It seems that you mistakenly believe that the first phase of this intervention, to establish law and order and to ensure the immediate safety of vulnerable women and children will be the sum total of the effort . This is clearly an incorrect assumption on your part.
The problem with” the little children are sacred “ report recommendations is that they take far too long to implement on the time table suggested. But I have faith that after the initial stabilisation period we will see many of the ideas in that report implemented.
Gee last time I checked the state labour governments have absolutely NO jurisdiction in the Northern Territory. And the NT government have been rather off the pace in this issue from the time Nannette Rodgers spilled the beans on Lateline a year ago.
So you expect the federal government to just drop the commitments that it has made to places like the Solomon Islands? Get real.
Sure community consultations will be part of the solution but the children being abused will not be saved by any consultations we know what the problem is so do the women and men who aren’t abusers. Save the abused children and the consult with the communities when such abuse has been stoped to ensure that the conditions that allowed such abuse will not recur.
I’ll admit that I’m not right up on this aspect of the plan but what good are land rights to any people who have been reduced to broken and beaten examples of humanity by Grog Ganga, Groping and Gasoline?
You Leftists just love to trot out this excuse don’t you? The very sad fact is that as bad as such abuse is in non-indigenous communities, the abuse that has been documented in indigenous communities is, sadly, more common and more pernicious by many orders of magnitude.
No one expects that this response will be the definitive answer to a very widespread problem but if it saves even a significant minority of abused children from further bashing or buggery then I think that you will find that the upcoming generation of indigenous children from remote Australia will be saying thankyou, rather than poor bugger me.
Hap I have been following this story in my blogs ever since Nanette Rodgers appeared on Lateline and I have yet to see anything from your fellow minions that even comes close to prioritising the young lives above the mythical ‘rights’ agenda. Sadly you don’t either.
‘Frankly I don’t care who invented the notion of an agency to protect the interests of vulnerable children.’
If you don’t that care that leftists are behind the prevention of child abuse, who do you accuse them of contributing to its worsening? Not very honest or consistent. Your interest in this matter seems prompted by an opportunity for leftie bashing, and I don’t see any evidence that you give a sincere shite about the plight of these folks.
‘In any case the way that I read the situation is that the federal government will be providing whatever resources will be needed to address this pressing problem.’
And beyond law and order resources, these additonal resources will be…? I assume you know, since you right about Aboriginal issues every other day.
‘It seem that you mistakenly believe that the first phase of this intervention, to establish law and order and to ensure the immediate safety of vulnerable women and children will be the sum total of the effort . This is clearly an incorrect assumption on your part.’
Since the longer-term details hasn’t been provided, I don’t think you can say definitively that Howard’s solution won’t be short-term. This is especially likely given that the issues will take years to address. If the situation is one of ‘immediate risk’, authorities would already have the legal mandate to do more now.
‘The problem with” the little children are sacred “ report recommendations is that thaey take far too long to implement on the time table suggested. But I have faith that after the initial stabilisation period we will see many of the ideas in that report implemented.’
Oh, you have faith, do you? Glad to see that your serious about the issues then…
‘Save the abused children and the consult with the communities when such abuse has been stoped to ensure that the conditions that allowed suich abuse will not recur.’
And what does ’saving’ entail, precisely? Removing children at risk is one thing, but where do you put them? With whom? Is the government going to spend a single cent of on providing suitable accommodation for ’saved’ children, for which there are already chronic shortages?
‘Gee last time I checked the state labour governments have absolutely NO jurisdiction in the Northern Territory.’
The article to which I linked was about NT, not the states.
‘So you expect the federal government to just drop the commitments that it has made to places like the Solomon Islands? Get real.’
Well the government has dropped ‘commitments’ to Aboriginal Australians for 11 years.
‘I’ll admit that I’m not right up on this aspect of the plan but what good are land rights to any people who have been reduced to broken and beaten examples of humanity by Grog Ganga , Groping and Gasoline?’
Not every Aboriginal is drug dependent or abused and, in any case, they might still care to have their land rights. Or does less child abuse occur when you take away people’s land?
‘You Leftists just love to trot out this excuse don’t you? The very sad fact is that as bad as such abuse is in non-indigenous communities, the abuse that has been documented in indigenous communities is, sadly, more common and more prevalent by many orders of magnitude.’
Actually, Victoria alone had almost 40,000 reports of child abuse last year, and other states are even worse. Numerically, there are many times more non-Aboriginal abuse cases than otherwise, by several ‘orders of magnitude’.
‘No one expects that this response will be the definitive answer to a very widespread problem…’
Yet you refer to this response as a ‘cure’ above, and blame the evil leftists for apparently not thinking of it first.
‘Hap I have been following this story in my blogs ever since Nanette Rodgers appeared on Lateline and I have yet to see anything from your fellow minions that even comes close to prioritising the young lives above the mythical ‘rights’ agenda. Sadly you don’t either.’
There’s no ‘rights’ agenda here. If you followed the story you would be aware that Aboriginals themselves, as well as the left, have forwarded responses. Since the ‘left’ are not in power anywhere in Australia, least of all federally, it’s a bit rich to enge in political point-scoring. Even Kevin Rudd has sought to place this issue beyond partisan politics, but you appear consistently incapable of doing this, once again ascribing all the world’s ills to the mythical ‘leftist’ conspiracy. Sadly, you can add cynical grandstanding to your already dubious blogging cv.
So one group pf people who claim to be of the left create a system to protect vulnerable children and you think that this absolves from blame another group of people who have created the political environment where children are neglected and left to the nonces because they are also from the left?
Mal Brough said that this response is the initial phase in his interview on the insiders on Sunday.
So you expect that a complex problem is amenable to a master plan do you. It is clear to all people of good intention that this response is only the first phase and that as it has bi-partisan support why should anyone believe that the every one will pack up and let things slide back to how they have been up until now.
Saved from abuse is self explanatory and does not automatically mean that children will be removed but given the choice between leaver a child in harms way and removing them I have no problem with choosing the latter.
So what? Your statement referred to the states and need I remind you that all of them have Labor governments?
No sane person would deny that this problem has its roots much further in the past that the election of the first Howard government.
Sure but the number of incidents per head of population is substantially worse in indigenous communities than it is in communities of similar size in any other state in Australia.
Hap have you never heard of the idea of using a metaphor? I used the image of a pustulant carbuncle to describe the abuse and neglect so it is constant that I should also characterise the Howard response as a cure when it is in actuality really only a first aid response .A cure will actually take longer which nobody is denying
As you well know the left have long championed the land right agenda as the cure-all for all indigenous problems. The fact of the matter that even where land rights claims have succeeded there has not been a magical evaporation of their problems. John Howard and Kevin Rudd are both trying to make this work and to do that they have to put aside the notion of attributing blame. As a commentator rather than a politician I am in more of a position to call a spade a spade and suggest where I think the blame lays.
Hap, Just what do you have to add to this debate? Not much beyond your usual conspiracy theories and neo-com agenda.
Of late I have been very much inspired by Noel Pearson on this issue and I agree with him when he says that we can not wait to stop the abuse; those children who are cowering in fear this very night can not wait until there have been enough consultations to satisfy the leftist ideologues such as your self.
You practically ‘Fisk’ yourself these days.
You’ve explicitly blamed ‘teh Left’ for the woes of Aboriginal Australia in the past. This is demonsrably false.
You have explicitly said that community consultation is a ‘luxury’ and a ‘nicety’. This too is demonstrably false.
I challenge you to name a single leftist who has ever proposed that ‘land rights’ is a solution to child abuse issues.
Face it – your post above (and previous on this topic) is nothing but the black and white thinking of a blinkered ideologue. You’ve picked up from Bolt the vague insinuation that the left caused Aboriginal child abuse, and hinder its improvement, and you’ve attempted to run with it. It hasn’t worked.
And you can ‘the Left’ to the list of groups (including Aboriginals, Muslims, gays, and women) about whom you cannot make an accurate or honest statement.
Hap
I could Go on and denounce your silly defence of the indefensible but instead I offer you this interview with Noel Pearson from last nights Lateline. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1962844.htm where he lays into the “progressives”(teh left” in your terms) with a passion and an elegance that I wish that I could so easily muster. Right or wrong only time will tell if the Howard intervention will provide the total answer but you and your fellow minions are part of the problem and your loud denials of this fact will not save one child from buggery or brutality.
‘Right or wrong only time will tell if the Howard intervention will provide the total answer but you and your fellow minions are part of the problem and your loud denials of this fact will not save one child from buggery or brutality.’
Is this International Irrational day or something?
I’ve shown you clearly, with evidence, that neither me, nor my purported ‘minions’, are responsible for the current brutality.
Howard was given plenty of information about NT child abuse last year, but has only last week decided to call the situation an ‘emergency’.
I respect Noel Pearson, however, the fact that Howard has managed to find one Aboriginal leader who agrees with his proposals does not make either man necessarily right.
The only thing ‘indefensible’ here is your petty, transparent and pathetic attempt to lay the problems of Aboriginal communities at the door of progressive politics. You might just as well blame the failures of ‘free markets’ on the Left while your at it.
I take it that you did not watch the clip then eh Hap?
I was not available for a Lateline viewing.
In any case, you’ve been demolished here.
Let’s get the facts straight:
‘There is a problem in Aboriginal communties’: Yep, everyone agrees
‘Urgent action is needed’: Again, everyone agrees
‘This situation is worsened by the Left, with its awful consultation, and attempts to propose a rational response’: The only person espousing this position is you.
You’ve attempted, in quite a reprehensible way, to defend this last ‘fact’ of yours, and you’ve been utterly beaten. Rather than concede that you were completely deluded, you instead seek to divert attention to last night’s episode of Lateline. I can see that you clearly have nothing left to say, and are running out of tricks. Next will come the ad hominem, and then I think you’re ‘argument’ (I’m being charitable here) is through.
Others agree with me.
Hap the link I provided would allow you to watch the interview online. where you will see that it is not just me giving a serve to “teh Left” on this topic. Now show us what a big boy you are by admitting what everyone else knows that the mindset that has its roots in leftist ideology has a great deal of responsibility for this rather nasty problem.
Oh yeah and watch the streaming video
Still dodging the topic.
You made the claim that the left is responsible – why don’t you own your words and prove it, or at least have the decency to retract it?
Others agree with me.
they are wrong as well Hap
Hap
you really are desperate aren’t you?
I write in my own name and you use a pseudonym and you have the cheek to write this?
I acknowledge that politicians of all flavours have some responsibility for the current plight of indigenous people but “teh left” are responsible for the more pernicious aspects of the problem; like the mindset that privileges rights(the right to drink, the right to party every night, the right to land ect ect) over the right for children to be safe and the right of children to have a future.
Of course I can’t claim credit for this argument if you would watch the clip I link to you can hear it from Noel himself, ah but you don’t want to hear such truths do you? Because it would mean that you might just have to admit that your beloved “teh Left” has feet of clay, just like every other political ideology.
You need to study Ideology 101 – The guy most mired in ideology is always the guy who thinks he doesn’t have one.
You have still failed to produce a single shred of evidence to demonstrate how the Left has contributed to ‘the more pernicious aspects of the problem’, and you seem to forget that plenty on the Right value ‘rights’ highly.
Your juvenile attack on the Left has comprehensively refuted. You are now somewhat akin to a defeated, deranged general, moving pieces on a map that no longer exist in real life.
It’s a waste of time for me to continually produce evidence to counter your unsubstantiated slurs, other than to provide me with typing practice.
The bilious, cretinous spasm that passes for today’s post is a case in point. Life is too short to refute such trash.
Obviously, you are either too gutless or immature to recant your baseless slurs against what is, in any case, a StrawLeft. I will put you out of your misery and depart, perhaps to seek a blog which actually features a debate, rather than the mindless slogan-chanting of an adolescent and his monkey troops.
I can see your problem Hap and it can be expressed in a simple form thus:-
Hap’s view of the moral spectrum
Left=virtue
Right= vice
To criticise the left is to utter a blasphemy…
Iain criticises the left therefore he is evil and he must recant.
Mate your refusal to watch the Lateline clip does you no favours but it does show that you have the blinkers very firmly attached to your head.(or that you are posting from work and stealing the bosses time and this bandwidth.)
For some one who denounces me for the alleged use of the ad hominem argument your last sentence in the previous comment is a perfect example of one of your own.
He’s departing? I thought the air smelled cleaner in here.Now I know why.
Can some one pass me a banana?
Wot, a man armed with a banana!!!
Oh no!!
This monkey-troop business is hard work, Rudi. What with peeling bananas, flinging faeces and scratching one’s ass there’s barely time to type.
Kg,
It sure is. I am one of thousands of moneys locked in a shed hitting keyboards to see whether or not one of us can replicate a great work of fiction.
As part of my AWA I have to hit the keyboard 100 times a minute so I have learnt to eat bananas with the skin on. Luckily there is a monkey – a recent immigrant from the Congo – paid to scratch our arses once an hour so that gives me relief.
gjkdqjgfewqhjfdsjjs
Damm – I stopped making sense.
Rudi.
ROFL!!