Native Notes

Being an old pinko, anarcho-communist type of bloke I tend to think there is a sameness about Australian politics that reminds me of beige upon beige.

There is a lot of icing sugar in Rudd’s pronouncements at this time but no real substance.

The unfortunate thing is that Rudd is still rolling out the intervention in the Northern Territory despite calls from people wanting it to stop or at least be changed.

At this time the Chair of the Central Health Service, an Aboriginal medical service that oversees approx. $100 million in funds is still caught up in that mess. She still has a part of her pension taken from her each fortnight and is given vouchers which can only be spent at certain food stores. She has no choice and the intervention and most of the worst aspects are still being undertaken in a racist manner. The very fact that Howard waived the racial discrimination act just to get the intervention going and Rudd has not thought fit to rectify that indicates where he might be going in the future.

Howard was disastrous for Aboriginal Australia and, as we are now seeing for all Australia in many ways. Rudd, at least, does have a few members of his cabinet who are dedicated to Aboriginal issues and equity.

However, a report released today indicates that from 1971 to 2006, although there has been some improvement in death rates, employment, education, etc. for Aboriginal people, in many respects we have gone backwards. To the point that this research indicates that, for some issues, it might take as much as 100 (yes, 100) years for Aboriginal Australia to achieve equity.

We are a very lucky country in so many ways. It is unfortunate that so many of us have a conservative bent that, to me, is due to the fact that we have never had any kind of revolution - not necessarily the bloody kind, but a revolution of minds and thoughts.

Babana, for instance, though new is one of the most successful men’s groups in NSW at least. However, it is still trying to scratch funds to pay for an office, perhaps a men’s shed and definitely a paid manager to keep things going. They keep trying to make the organization play to their tune, when it is shown so often to be not working. It, and its members will survive but it will not necessarily be thanks to the bureaucracy.

The Babana website will soon be putting up some of the things that the organization has been doing lately, just to let people know its members are alive and well.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.